A Tangled Gateway
by Fawe
Summary: After the events of Paraguay, Harm finds a new place for himself. Stargate Crossover, but the focus is on Harm
1. Voy and shipper list Chapters 1 to 61

ATWII/Next ep follow-up. Because I think Harm's had a raw deal lately, and think he could use some recognition. Stargate SG-1 Xover  
  
Harm kicked open the door to his apartment and dumped his the box on his desk. The box that said he was out of JAG for good. Not bothering to shut his door, he slumped down on the couch and stared into the middle distance. He got the fright of his life when someone cleared their throat. Looking up, he saw a man a few years older than himself, dressed casually in jeans and a fairly tatty shirt. "Commander Rabb?" "Not any more. Who are you?" "Colonel Jack O'Neill. Air Force." "What are you doing in my apartment?" "Some very important people heard about what you did in Paraguay. About why you did it, and why you had to resign your commission in order to do it. They don't think someone like you should be cut loose like you were." "Oh?" "You risked your life to prevent someone from being left behind. To do something the Navy should have done officially, especially seeing as she shouldn't have been there in the first place. Even though the people you work with have been treating you like dirt recently, you were still willing to risk everything to save one of them, when a former SEAL, who ought to remember to leave no-one behind, wouldn't even lift a finger to help her. And once you had her, you didn't just leave, thinking you'd done what you intended to do. You destroyed a very real threat to the US. And this isn't the first time you've gone above and beyond the call of duty." "Is there a point to all of this, Colonel?" "Chegwidden may have processed your resignation, but it's been blocked by people a lot more influential than he is. I operate from a top-secret facility in Colorado which does things more to defend this nation than any other single military base, and I think you'd fit in. So does my CO, and so do the Joint Chiefs." "You're offering me a job?" "I'm offering you a job. The chance to do something important. The chance to do what's right without having to worry about losing everything. We're a tight group, and one thing we believe more than anything else is that no- one gets left behind. We're mainly Air Force with a few Marines, but we've been thinking for a while of adding some SEALs to that mix." "I'm not a SEAL. And I'm too old to become one." "If you join us, the first thing you'll see is that we don't stand on ceremony much. And there's a lot goes on that's not exactly SOP. We don't get much recognition, but we don't get much beaurocratic interference either." "What's the catch?" "A lot of us don't live very long. And we can't tell anyone, and I mean anyone, about our work. Some people never even leave the base. And as well as losing your life, there's the risk of losing your soul. I can't tell you any more in an unsecure location. You interested?" Harm smiled, intrigued both by the idea of what O'Neill had been describing, and by the chance to remain in the Navy. His only other real option was the CIA, and he didn't like how they operated. "Well, I'll have to check my diary, but I don't think I have anything planned for the next few years." O'Neill grinned back at him. "Sense of humour. I like a sense of humour. Well, get your things together. We're off to see the wizard!"  
  
THREE MONTHS LATER  
  
Chained side-by-side to the wall, the members of SG-6 watched their leader. He was chained to the wall opposite them, hanging by his wrists, his body slumped to the floor. Blood flowed freely down his bare chest, and the stark red line of a cut which went right down to the bone split his face in two from his left brow to the right hand side of his chin, narrowly missing his left eye, which was purple and swollen. His hair was matted with blood and dirt. Before him stood Zeus, a sinister smirk on his face. "You are impudent, Tau'ri. Your hubris disgusts me. You do not deserve to live. But my son desires a new host, and would have one recently come from your planet, which he favours above all others. So instead of the punishment your actions merit, you are to receive a great honour. Jaffa!" He snapped his fingers, and a pair of Jaffa stepped forward, a priest standing between them, bearing the Goa'uld Apollo. Lieutenant Commander Frank Cody fought the urge to vomit, just barely defeating it. To either side he saw his team-mates doing the same. Then he refocused his attention on Hammer. "Hubris is pride of a level which dishonours the gods, snake. You're no god, so my actions aren't hubris." A Jaffa struck him across the face, and Harm just smiled. "What, afraid to hit me yourself? Why would a god fear to strike a mortal?" "He's taunting him! Is he insane?" Frank heard CPO Tony Marks hiss beside him. "You are beneath me, Tau'ri." At those words, Zeus made an angry motion with his hand. The priest stepped forwards, and held up the Goa'uld to Harm's head. Harm held his head up defiantly, staring into the eyes of the powerful Goa'uld as he felt another fight its way into his body through his neck. He smiled a tight smile, then shut his eyes, ramming his head back against the wall behind him.  
  
Harm had heard the stories about what happened when a Goa'uld tried to take over your body, but nothing anyone had said, even Major Carter, who had experienced it to a degree, prepared him for the reality of it. Mac had once accused him of being afraid of losing control. Now he was in danger of losing control not only over his emotions, over the course of his life, but over his body and the words that came out of his mouth. And to some extent, control over his soul.  
~Do not struggle, Tau'ri. To do so is pointless.~  
Harm made no coherent response to the voice in his head, but it laughed at the upswelling of emotions it detected.  
~You are truly a warrior. But I am Apollo the Far-shooter. A greater and more terrible warrior than you could ever hope to be.~ Harm searched his memories. Greek mythology was not his strong point, but he had read the Iliad once.  
~Didn't you back the losing side at Troy?~  
Pain seared through his body. Harm felt his spine curve backwards and his fist clench, not through the control of the Goa'uld but as part of the body's natural reaction to the pain the snake was creating.  
~As my father said, you are impudent, Tau'ri. It will be satisfying to break your spirit.~  
~Then prepare to never be satisfied.~  
So thinking, Harm began to fight. He fought as he had never fought before, and the only visible signs of his struggle were the tensing of his muscles and the way his mouth opened in a silent scream. Zeus watched, perturbed, but did nothing, for fear of harming Apollo.  
The four SEALs watched in amazement. They had all seen Goa'uld take a new host before, even if it hadn't been anyone they knew. It's the sort of sight you get used to quickly at the SGC. But they hadn't seen anyone able to fight it this successfully before. Sure, some people struggled, but within a few seconds you could always see the host give up as their eyes flashed yellow and the Goa'uld took control.  
That didn't happen this time. For three minutes which felt more like three hours to both the combatants and their audience, Harm struggled against Apollo.  
  
And then the struggle stopped.  
  
SG-6 watched with baited breath. They saw Harm's eyes open, but for the moment couldn't tell whether they were really Harm's eyes any more. They waited for the surge of yellow light that would tell them their friend was now a prisoner in his own mind.  
It never came. Instead, Harmon Rabb began to laugh. Uncontrollably.  
Startled, Zeus took a step back. This was something he had never seen before, in several thousand years. Tears streamed from the eyes of the Tau'ri as he laughed, mingling with the blood that already covered his face.  
Harm closed his eyes again and leaned back against the wall, still shaking from unfettered laughter. The several Jaffa in the cell exchanged glances, confused. They had been expecting Zeus, or even Apollo, to command them to unchain the prisoner, now vessel to a god. But that did not happen. No god spoke to them, told them what to do.  
The seed of doubt had been sown in the Jaffa. A god did not behave as the man chained to the wall did. Or at least, the Goa'uld did not. And if the Goa'uld they had seen enter the Tau'ri did not have control over his chosen body, there was no way he was a god. And if one Goa'uld was not a god, how could the rest of the race be? Zeus claimed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, but confusion reigned upon his face.  
One Jaffa acted before any of the others in the room had resolved their inner conflict. This Jaffa cast away a lifetime of belief on the evidence of his eyes. He had been lied to. No-one likes to discover that the being whom they honour above all others has deceived them. He levelled his staff weapon. A single blast severed Zeus' head from his body. The tail end of the Goa'uld could be seen jerking frenziedly as it poked out from the base of the skull, but not for long. And once it had stopped, another Jaffa stepped forward and ground it into the floor with his heel.  
The Jaffa who had moved first turned to Harm and tilted his weapon in salute, inclining his head. The sound of the weapon's discharge had jarred the Commander from his hysteria, and his eyes met those of one of his former tormentors.  
"I pledge my life to the Tau'ri, and to the freeing of all Jaffa."  
The others murmured their additions to this statement. Harm kept his gaze locked with the first Jaffa's.  
"What's your name?"  
"Kre'tol, son of Ro'san."  
"On behalf of the Tau'ri I gratefully accept your allegiance, Kre'tol son of Ro'san. And if you would free me and my friends, I'd be even more grateful."  
The Jaffa were moved to action by this, and soon the junior members of SG-6 were rubbing their wrists. Harm did not move from where he was, leaned against the wall as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. Lt Cmdr Cody and Chief Marks each slung one of his arms around their own shoulders and raised him to his feet. Frank Cody spoke to the Jaffa.  
"He needs medical attention. We have to get him to the gate and back to Earth."  
"Of course. Follow this way. These others will act as guards, and you are still our prisoners. Any who ask shall be told that we have orders to transport you to the penal colony on Folarin, as Apollo found none of you suitable to act as his host."  
  
And so they made their way to the gate unchallenged. But there they faced a new problem.  
"Hammer? They took away our GDOs. How are we supposed to get back to Earth?"  
"Dial up the Land of Light. There's no iris there, and SG-9's there at the moment renegotiating the trade agreement. We can use one of their GDOs to get home." The effort of speaking exhausted him, and when he had finished speaking he fell into a dead faint.  
  
"He's awake."  
Six heads snapped up at that announcement. Jack and the four SEALs let the General speak.  
"How is he?"  
"His physical condition is better than I had expected, but not good. At this stage it's too early to tell, but the dying Goa'uld may have caused some neurological damage. His blood's full of naquadah and the same protein marker Major Carter has, due to the symbiote's body being absorbed into his own. He's got several cracked ribs, but no other injuries beyond the obvious lacerations. Most of them will scar, especially the deeper ones. There's nothing I can do for his face."  
"You said that was his physical condition. What about his mental condition?"  
"He now has the memories of a genocidal megalomaniac famed for his music. He has all the knowledge of the Goa'uld, and most of that isn't the sort of stuff you like to think about. He speaks almost all this planet's dead languages, and can remember songs and epic poems that have been lost for generations. For a few brief minutes another creature was privy to his every thought, and the Commander's a more private man than most. And in the struggle against Apollo, I think something snapped inside him."  
"So we can take that as a 'not good', Doc?"  
"Colonel, there's no-one alive who can understand what he's going through. He's going to have to try and work through this by himself, and I have no idea whether his psyche will be able to handle that."  
"Don't tell him I said this, but what about a shrink?"  
"That would probably be counter-productive. There's no counselor in the world qualified to handle a case like this, and the Commander's too intelligent not to see that. Even if we had someone with the security clearance who could handle this case, they'd need to be able to show Commander Rabb they could at least get a handle on what he was going through, and there's no way anyone could convince him of that."  
"What about Carter?"  
"The situation's entirely different. Jolinar was, in principle, one of the good guys. She had no malicious intent towards Sam, and didn't try to kill her or completely take her over. In fact, she saved Sam's life after the Ashrak tried to kill them both."  
General Hammond was by now looking very concerned. "When will you be able to tell whether he's going to recover?"  
"Honestly sir, I don't know. Everything depends on how he handles this, and I haven't known him long enough to have a good idea of how he handles stress or emotional pain."  
"Keep me informed, Doctor. I'd like to know as soon as possible whether you think he'll be able to return to duty."  
"Of course, sir. Now if you don't mind, I have some tests I'd like to run. If the Commander feels up to any guests in an hour or so, I'll let you all know. Now I think the best thing you can do is get some sleep. He's not going to want to see his team looking as bad as you do, and Colonel you have a mission tomorrow."  
  
ONE WEEK LATER  
  
Harm sat in his quarters, strumming at his guitar without noticing what he was playing. He'd learned to do that so he wouldn't suddenly realise that he hadn't known the tune before Apollo had invaded his mind and left behind so much Harm longed to forget.  
He heard a knock at his door, then Jack O'Neill walked in.  
"I'm not disturbing you?"  
"No." Jack nodded. The two men understood each other fairly well. Neither of them liked to talk about their feelings much. It gave them a degree of mutual respect that prevented the distrust which might otherwise have developed between them. Though they tended to think alike in some ways, such as the importance of friendship and loyalty, some of their principles jarred with each other. Harm was too much like Daniel Jackson for Jack not to get exasperated with his insistence on trying to understand people and always treating strangers with a respect that occasionally bordered on reverence. Harm found Jack a little too trigger-happy. Had they been on the same team, they would have driven each other mad in short order. As it was, they had developed a tenuous friendship.  
"Doc says you should be fit enough to put SG-6 back on rotation in a few days."  
"I know. I'm going nuts sitting around with nothing to do but think all the time. I even got Hammond to give me some of the base's legal stuff to go over yesterday."  
"Keep busy, you never have to think about what's bothering you."  
"You said it."  
"I got a question for you."  
"Shoot."  
"How'd you kill Apollo?"  
Harm smiled. Trust Jack to be the one to ask the question everyone on base had been thinking since it happened. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about it himself, and he thought he'd finally come up with an answer.  
"Christmas Eve, 1969."  
  
"What?"  
"Christmas Eve, 1969."  
"You killed Apollo because of a day when you were what, five?"  
"Six."  
"What happened that day?"  
"My father was shot down over Vietnam."  
Jack sat down heavily. "He was killed?"  
"Not at immediately."  
"MIA?"  
"Yeah."  
"You ever find out what happened to him?"  
"Not for thirty years."  
They sat in silence for a few years, Harm thinking about his father, Jack thinking about what he just learned.  
"So how'd that help you kill Apollo?"  
"It taught me how to build emotional walls. I had to be strong for my mom. I'm not sure she could've handled my grief as well as her own. So I hid my emotions. Though I guess that alone wouldn't have done it. Vietnam taught me to build the walls higher, and Mac taught me to build the walls stronger."  
Jack just raised an eyebrow. He had no idea what Harm was talking about, as Harm instantly realised.  
"I ran away to Vietnam when I was sixteen to look for my father. I didn't find him, but I saw stuff no-one should see, especially not a kid. And I got a girl killed. When I got home, my mom wouldn't speak to me for weeks. I never got a chance to talk about what happened, so I built the walls higher."  
"What about Mac?"  
"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, United States Marines."  
"The one you went after in Paraguay?"  
"Yeah."  
"She broke your heart?"  
"Six times, that I can think of. Probably a few others that don't seem so important any more."  
"And you still went after her?"  
"I had to. I loved her."  
"How'd she break your heart." Harm looked over at him. "I know it's none of my business, but you probably need to get it out of your system. Bad enough remembering every bad thing Apollo did without having your own demons eat you up inside. I know what it's like to lose someone. I lost my son. Anything you tell me will stay between us." Harm nodded.  
"You're probably right."  
"So?"  
"The first time, we were in Sydney on a case. She asked me if we were going to wait an eternity. I told her I wasn't ready yet. Two days later, she turns up at the airport with a man I hate, wearing his ring on her right hand."  
"Ouch."  
"The second time, I'd just found out my half-brother was MIA. I was thinking about resigning my comission to go and look for him. She found out, and told me it was no time to be making life-changing decisions. The next time I saw her, she'd moved the ring over to her left hand. The third time was at her engagement party. We were out on the porch talking about the past, and at the end she kissed me. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her back. I put my whole heart into it. And she told me we were getting too good at saying goodbye, and walked back inside to be with Mic."  
"She got married?"  
"No. I crashed a Tomcat into the Atlantic the night before her wedding, she postponed it, then he called it off because he didn't think she loved him enough. Things weren't great between us for a while after that, but there wasn't any one thing that really broke my heart again until just before she went to Paraguay. I'd been in the brig for a month, and none of my friends had contacted me once. When they found out who really killed the woman I was accused of murdering, they let me out. Mac came over to my place, saying she wanted to see how I was doing, but she really wanted to drop a bombshell on me and tell me she was going to Paraguay with Webb, who has never gotten us involved in something that hasn't gone wrong in some way. I told her I didn't want her to go, and she told me I only show interest when she has one foot out the door, and walked out on me."  
"I take it the last two times were in Paraguay when you went to get her?"  
"Yeah. Webb asked me how I got permission from the Admiral to come down to Paraguay, and I said I'd resigned my commission. Mac told me I was insane, that the Navy was all I had. And she didn't even realise how much it hurt me to hear her say that. The last time was just as we were leaving. She told me it could never work between us because we both want to be on top. She didn't ask me for my opinion, she didn't recognise my sacrifice. Hell, she never even thanked me for saving her life, though Webb and the Gunny who helped me out both got hugs. She just made her decision, and decided we could never be together. Without even giving it a chance."  
"So you made the walls stronger."  
"I had to. There was no way I could have survived the trip home if I hadn't built my walls back up tougher than they had ever been before. And that's how I killed Apollo."  
"Yeah. You still haven't exactly told me how."  
"He had to get past the walls in order to control me. I think that took up too much of his energy. And when he finally managed to shatter one, the shock of my emotions pouring out killed him. That's what drove me to hysterics. That's what "snapped", as Janet put it. And I've spent the last week trying to rebuild that wall with everything related to Apollo behind it."  
"Has it worked?"  
"Of course not. If it had worked, I wouldn't sit here playing tunes I don't even know. I wouldn't catch myself thinking in Ancient Egyptian or Doric Greek every few hours. And I sure as hell wouldn't be having this conversation with you. Or anyone."  
"You know, the language thing could come in useful. And some of those tunes and poems you keep spouting could earn you some money. If the SGC ever goes public, you're going to have geeks from all over trying to get at all that lost knowledge in your head. And that's not even including the Goa'uld technology you can understand, and the fact that you can use Ribbon devices and stuff now."  
"Trying to find the silver lining in the world's biggest cloud?"  
"Carter could probably do better than me. And she'd get all excited about it. I'm just thinking maybe you shouldn't just shut everything away. I know I didn't get over my guilt about Charlie's death until I was forced to think about it and deal with it."  
"I guess. I never dealt with losing my father until I found out how he died. I never even cried for him until that day, except the day I found out he'd been taken to Russia."  
"You have to deal with this your way, Rabb. No-one else can tell you how."  
"Yeah. Thanks, Jack. I don't usually talk about stuff, but this helped."  
"You and me have been through more crap in our personal lives than all the rest of the people on this base put together, except maybe Carter and Daniel. Screw-ups like us need to stick together."  
The serious part of the conversation was over.  
"Speak for yourself. I'm a lawyer. I can get by by sueing people who piss me off."  
"Whatever. Oh, and Hammond wants to see you in his office when you have a moment."  
"I guess there's no time like the present. Any idea what he wants to talk to me about?"  
"Probably give you your Purple Heart. Or threaten to kill you unless you can get your team to calm down. Keep them out of the action for a week you'd think they had no reason to live any more."  
"They're SEALs. They're crazy."  
"Says the guy who played chicken with a dirty nuke." They had been walking as they spoke, and now reached the elevator. It contained SG-3, so their conversation was forced to a halt while the four Marines argued loudly over whose turn it was to take first watch on their next mission.  
  
Harm found General Hammond not in his office, but in the Briefing Room. Much to his surprise, all of SG-6 were there, clad like he in their Summer Whites rather than the BDUs they generally wore around the base. Harm wore his because he'd been going over legal documents earlier in the morning, and didn't feel comfortable doing that in BDUs. Why the others were in their Whites, he had no idea. But they exuded an unmistakable air of smugness.  
  
The Secnav was there too.  
"Commander Rabb reporting as ordered, sir." The Secnav exchanged looks with Hammond, each giving the other a minute nod. Then the General spoke.  
"Attention to orders!"  
Everyone in the room who was not already at attention snapped to. The Secnav came and stood in front of Harm.  
"Raise your right hand."  
Complete astonishment overcame Harm as he realised what was happening. He parrotted the Secnav's words without really realising that he was doing so, and the next thing he was aware of was O'Neill at his side, removing his shoulder boards and replacing them with new ones. Secretary Sheffield held out his hand.  
"Congratulations, Captain Rabb."  
"Thank you, sir. I hadn't even dreamed."  
"You earned it, Captain. It's officially being seen as a battlefield promotion, given that you had less than four years in rank, but it's been approved by all the necessary people. Chegwidden was a fool to let you go, but the position you're in now could have been made for you."  
"I'm grateful for your faith in me, sir."  
"We're not finished yet."  
"Sir?"  
"There's still the matter of your Purple Heart and POW medal. And your Silver Star. Congratulations. It's not every day you get three medals for two days' work."  
Harm retreated back into a mental fog whilst his citations were read and Hammond pinned on his medals. Then, after a round of handshakes, the small group relazed a little. Until Frank Cody stepped forward.  
"Hammer? There's something we wanted to add. If you hadn't beat that snake, we wouldn't be here today."  
He stepped forward, and pinned a SEAL Trident above Harm's wings. "Hoo-yah, SEAL."  
For a moment, Harm could do nothing but stare at him. Then he said, in the low, slightly awed voice he had used when Mace pinned a set of gold wings onto his uniform,  
"Thanks, Frank."  
"I think that's everything. Dismissed."  
"Just one thing, General."  
"Captain?"  
"I was wondering. if the Secretary's going back to DC now, could I go with him? There's someone I need to talk to."  
"A friend from JAG?"  
"No sir. My Dad."  
"Your service record lists him as deceased."  
"He is, sir. His name's on the Wall."  
Sympathy flashed briefly in Hammond's eyes. "If the Secretary has no objections, I think we can spare you for a couple of days."  
"Thank you, General."  
  
The flight passed with Harm and Sheffield exchanging polite small- talk. Harm was surprised to realise the level of respect the politician seemed to have for him. The few times he had met him in the course of JAG work, it hadn't been apparent. It seemed he had made a good impression on Tracy Manetti. When they arrived at Andrews, Sheffield had a Petty Officer detailed to drive Harm to the Wall, then wherever he wanted until it was time for his return to Colorado. The Petty Officer took one look at the not- yet-healed slash down Harm's face and decided to stay on the tall Captain's good side, because he couldn't help but think that whoever had given him the wound had been given cause to regret it.  
Parking as near to the Wall as was possible on a sunny day in August when the tourists were out in full force, Harm instructed the driver to remain with the car, but come looking for him if he wasn't back in an hour.  
"If you want to go for a walk or get something to eat, that's fine. Just don't move the car, I'll never find it again if you do."  
Then he let his footsteps guide him to the familiar spot on the Wall, and let his fingers trace out the name of his father.  
"Hi Dad. Look at me. I made Captain. Bet you didn't think that would ever happen. I sure as hell didn't, with the year I've been having." He gave a short laugh. "Perhaps someone up there decided I could use a break. If you put in a good word for me, thanks." He sighed. "How do I rebuild the walls, Dad? I can't afford to let the memories overwhelm me but like Jack said, they could be useful. I could save lives, but is that worth losing Harmon Rabb in the remnants of Apollo? Sometimes I catch myself thinking of something I did once, and I don't even realise for a while that I'm remembering something I never did. His memories are meshing with mine, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to handle it."  
A soft breeze cooled his skin for a moment, and he was strangely comforted by it. He put thoughts of Apollo and the Goa'uld from his mind, and began to talk about nothing in particular, enjoying the opportunity to ramble without having to worry about switching language unconsciously. He was totally oblivious to the three people who watched him.  
  
Sturgis Turner could not quite believe his eyes. When Harm had dropped off the radar after his showdown with the Admiral, he had fully expected never to see his friend again, or at least not for a lot longer than three months.  
And seeing him in Navy uniform, a Captain no less, was the last thing he would ever have expected. When a two-star practically throws you out of his command, and the whole Navy, you don't generally get back in without people hearing about it, let alone a promotion. And frankly, part of him was surprised Harm had even wanted to get back in. As much as Sturgis loved the Navy, and as much as he knew Harm loved the Navy, he had to admit it had not done well by Harm in the recent past.  
"Sturgis, is that who I think it is?" He looked over at his companion.  
"Any other six-foot-four dark-haired sailors you know of whose dad's name is on that part of the Wall?"  
"There's no way he can be back in the Navy. That would take political intervention, and I'd have heard about it. I'm surprised he didn't come to me if he needed help getting back in."  
"He definitely hasn't been in DC the last few months. There's no way neither of us would have heard about it."  
"So what's he doing back here now?" Bobbi knew Harm. He tended to have a reason for everything he did, however obscure it might seem to an outsider.  
"If I had to guess, I'd say he came to tell his father about his promotion. And I intend to find out what he did to deserve that promotion so far below the zone."  
  
The third watcher was looking far more closely at the tall Navy Captain, and with far less curiosity. He was surprised that the man had not felt his presence, but then, he was weak and unused to whatever sensations he might have been experiencing since he murdered Apollo.  
The Tau'ri was as tall and dangerous-looking as the report had said. It would take careful planning to teach him his lesson, especially as soon he would recognise the feel of a nearby symbiote for what it was. But careful planning would reap him great rewards. To capture a man who had slain the son of a powerful Goa'uld, and who had encouraged the Jaffa of Zeus to murder their master, would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Maybe even give him the status to rise above the rank of Ashrak.  
  
Harm, unaware that Bobbi and Sturgis had seen him, returned to the Cheyenne Mountain without being seen by anyone else who knew him. Until the plane left the runway at Andrews he had felt a strange sensation, as if there were someone near him who did not fit the body they wore, but for the time being he chalked it up to paranoia.  
A week later, SG-6 was back in the field. The regular gate journeys, which resembled nothing so much as a wild ride in an F-14, did more to return Harm to a semblance of his former self than any amount of sitting alone and thinking could do. The routine of the SGC became as normal as it ever was, with SG-1 getting themselves, and in some cases the planet, into plenty of sticky situations, and most other teams having a relatively dull time of it, making friends, arranging trade agreements and occasionally getting shot at. The number of Purple Hearts that got handed out was shocking.  
  
FOUR MONTHS LATER  
  
The leaders of SG teams 2, 3 and 6 had been summoned to the briefing room following SG-1's most recent mission. As the three men had made their way to the room, they had made good-natured wagers about how long it would be before they were all leading their teams through the gate, and which would be the first team to get shot at on the other side. They were wagers Harm the JAG lawyer would never have made, not liking to dwell too much on death, but at the SGC you had to make sport of it, otherwise you'd be insane within a month. And SG-6 had gained a reputation similar to that of SG-1, whereby people would readily put money on their getting into trouble, but would always then put money on how long it would take them to get out of trouble, confident that it wouldn't take too long.  
SG-1 were sitting in their customary seats. Hammond gestured to the three new arrivals to sit down, then told Major Carter to brief them on what SG-1's recon mission had discovered on PX9 274.  
"Tests of the soil near the gate, which is halfway up a mountain, suggest that somewhere nearby is the biggest deposit of naquadah we've ever come across, probably relatively near to the surface. When I've finished the analysis of our test results, I should be able to pinpoint the exact location of the deposit. If we can get our hands on some of this naquadah, there's a chance we can use it to upgrade some of the Prometheus' systems."  
"I feel a but coming" "Where's the catch?" "Why do you need us?"  
All three team leaders spoke at once. O'Neill raised an eyebrow at them, and Carter hid a smile.  
"Well, sirs, there's a slight problem."  
"Carter's Wonder-rock isn't exactly lying around for us to walk in and take away."  
"Thank you, Colonel. There's a Goa'uld base on the planet. We're not sure whose it is, but it's well-guarded, and not far from one of the most likely locations of the naquadah. Chances are that's why it's situated there."  
"So why don't we just forget about it? We've got other sources of naquadah."  
"We don't have any source as plentiful as this one probably is. And even if we can't secure it for ourselves, we don't want a Goa'uld having access to that much of the stuff, even if they don't have much of a power base. That much naquadah could make an incredble bargaining chip."  
Harm looked at the General.  
"Sir, you're not seriously suggesting that we take our teams into a situation like that? Naquadah's not exactly easy to carry around, and trying to get to some with a Goa'uld base next door? It's insane, sir."  
"You have a valid point, Captain, but I have to agree with Major Carter on this one. Since we built the Prometheus, our need for naquadah has increased. And being able to power this base and the stargate with a naquadah reactor would significantly lower the amount of money it costs to run this place, money that could be spent on developing our weapons systems to give increased protection against Goa'uld invasion. SG-2 will hold position at the stargate to make sure the rest of you don't get cut off. SG- 3 and SG-6 will provide cover for SG-1, and create any necessary diversions, while SG-1 attempt to infiltrate the base and see if they can neutralise it. If they deem it too much of a risk, you'll all withdraw, taking with you any naquadah you can get your hands on, and return here. If the plan seems a total loss, we'll write off that planet and flag it as dangerous. If it looks like it would be possible to take out the base using different tactics, we'll regroup and try again at a later date. Major Carter should be able to determine the location of the deposit within the hour. You and your teams leave in two. Dismissed."  
  
The mission started out well. They often do.  
Strangely enough, it didn't finish on quite the same note.  
  
"Please tell me you're kidding."  
"No sir."  
"Oh shit." Harm rarely swore. The fact that he did so now shows just how bad the news Frank had just delivered to him was. "Are SG-1 out of there yet?"  
"No sir."  
"They got any way of hearing us?"  
"No sir. The dampening field around the complex isn't letting our radio transmissions through."  
"Where's SG-3 at the moment?"  
"About a click to the right of that ridge." This offered by CPO Marks. "They can't read us because of the magnetic field from the iron and naquadah in the hills."  
Harm nodded. "Okay, here's what's going to happen. Frank, Tony, you're going to double time it over to SG-3's position. Tell them what's going on, and stick with them. I want you positioned on the route SG-1's going to take getting out of there, deal with any hostiles you might see so they don't realise what's going on, and can't tell anyone about it. Ray, Zip, you're going back to the gate to reinforce SG-2. If we lose the gate, none of us are getting out of here alive. Any questions?"  
"What're you going to do?"  
"I'm going to distract those Jaffa Frank saw."  
"Hammer, there's about three hundred of them. It's gonna take more than you to distract them."  
"They're gonna feel me coming. They'll have to head for me. They'll either think I'm a Goa'uld, and want to find out what's going on, or realise who I am and do their best to kill or capture me. I'm not exactly popular with the snakes at the moment. I take anyone with me, that puts them in needless danger. Once I'm within range, I'll try and pick them off whilst staying under cover. Let's move."  
"Hoo-yah."  
  
Frank, Tony and SG-3 did as Harm had requested. They met up with SG-1 as they fled the compound, the charges placed and the base ready to blow. Jack immediately noticed their agitation.  
"What's goin' on?"  
"Three hundred Jaffa descending on this position. Hammer's gone to try and head them off. Alone."  
"Is he nuts? Don't bother answering that. You know where they are?"  
"Not exactly, sir. The speed and direction they were travelling, if nothing had happened to them they'd've been in a position to shoot you as you crossed the compound."  
"In that case, Rabb could probably use our help. Let's move, people."  
  
Casting aside any pretence at operating stealthily, they moved as quickly as possible in the direction Frank thought the Jaffa were most likely to be found. After only a few minutes, they heard the sounds of staff weapons and zat guns being discharged, interspersed with the occasional explosion of a hand-grenade and some automatic-weapon fire.  
Staying just inside the treeline, they were able to see what was going on, taking in the entire situation in an instant. Harm had single- handedly ambushed the Jaffa as they came through a ravine towards him, slightly beneath the position of SG 1, 2 and part of 6. The rocks in his part of the ravine provided Harm with some cover, and the ravine offered the Jaffa small hope of escape, but Harm was still taking heavy fire.  
Instantly, all those looking down from above drew out hand-grenades, and the Jaffa found themselves put upon from above as well as from the lone Tau'ri who had drawn them into the ravine in the first place. A few got off further shots, but the detonation of a large number of grenades in an enclosed space was not conducive to longevity. Those Jaffa not killed by the initial explosions were taken out by flying shards of their comrades' armour.  
Unfortunately, four of the Jaffa had been bearing between them a crate of naquadah. The exploding grenades catalysed the explosion of the weapons-grade naquadah, and a blinding flash filled the ravine, the heat of the explosion killing the few Jaffa who were not by then completely dead.  
Harm, only slightly wounded in the initial firefight, had got to his feet to get the hell out of there when he realised the cavalry had turned up. As he turned, he felt the heat of the explosion strike the top left- hand side of his body. White-hot pain consumed him, and he fell to the ground, striking his head against a rock as the skin on his left arm blistered and the blood tried to boil.  
Frank Cody saw this happening, and with total lack of regard for his own safety he high-tailed it down to his team-leader. He was closely followed by the others, though they went more cautiously and were more alert to the possibility of some of the Jaffa having avoided the blast.  
Frank looked up as Jack reached his side.  
"He's out cold, sir. And his arm looks really badly burnt. We need to get him back to the gate."  
"For cryin' out loud, is this guy ever conscious when you finish a mission? Let's move, people."  
As they approached the gate, they heard another explosion. Looking back, they could see the sky light up with a bright orange glow and the Goa'uld compound was blasted to smithereens. They spared only a few seconds to watch before going through the gate, to emerge on the other side yelling "MEDICAL TEAM!" as loud as they could.  
  
TWO DAYS LATER  
  
DECEMBER 24TH  
  
Sturgis kept a lonely, silent vigil by the Wall. He had been there since the early afternoon, after talking his way out of having to go to the JAG Christmas party. He didn't feel in a party mood. The date had only served to remind him how long it had been since the day he saw Harm at the Wall, and how fruitless his quest to learn what had happened to his friend had been. He'd been certain Harm would show up sometime that day.  
But he had not seen hide nor hair of him, and it was beginning to get very cold. His breath hung in the air before him in a cloud, and he tried to huddle deeper into his trenchcoat.  
Then out of the gloom, he saw a figure approach, about the right height. His hopes were raised for an instant, then dashed as he made out the figure's features more clearly. This was not Harm. And his uniform was Air Force, not Navy.  
He seemed slightly lost, as though he did not know the exact location of the name he sought. Ever the preacher's son, Sturgis stepped forward.  
"Are you looking for someone in particular, sir?"  
"Harmon Rabb Senior." Sturgis froze. Harm had sent someone in his place. Or someone had taken it upon himself to come without being asked.  
"Right here, Colonel."  
"Thanks." Sturgis didn't move away. "Something else, Commander?"  
"I was wondering why you wanted to visit that particular name."  
"His son usually visits on Christmas Eve, but he can't make it this year."  
"Why not?"  
Jack, however it may appear sometimes, was not stupid.  
"You're a friend of his."  
"Sturgis Turner. We went to the Academy together. Then worked together at JAG for a couple of years."  
"Jack O'Neill. Rabb's mentioned your name once or twice. He respects you. I guess it's okay to tell you, but I don't think he'd want it spread around too much."  
"Tell me what?"  
"He was injured in action day before yesterday, and unconscious by the time we got him to a doctor. He slipped into a coma a few hours later."  
"What happened?"  
"That's classified. I shouldn't even have told you that much."  
"If I give you a number where you can contact me, would you keep me updated on his condition?" Sturgis held out a card with his cellphone number and his number at JAG.  
"Sure. Nice to know not everyone at JAG hates him."  
"Harm didn't do anything except stick to the principles he believed in. There was a time when the Admiral and the Colonel would both have supported him. No-one's quite sure what happened to change that."  
"A guy at the Pentagon told me there's a rumour Chegwidden was really out of line with what he said to Rabb after Paraguay. But he's not sure what it was."  
"The Admiral told Harm he wasn't a "team player"."  
"You're kidding me. He actually said that?"  
"Yeah." Jack stared Harm's father's name for a few seconds, a grim silence settling between the two men. Then he took a step back and saluted the Wall.  
"Your son's a good man, Lieutenant. You should be proud of him." Then he looked over at Sturgis. "Commander, should you happen to see me around in the next few days, we've never met and you have no idea who I am."  
"Yes sir." Sturgis saluted him, then O'Neill nodded and walked off, leaving the Naval Officer looking after him, uncomfortably aware of the fact that what O'Neill had just said could be construed as premeditation.  
  
FOUR DAYS LATER  
  
Those JAG officers who did not have the good fortune to be on leave were bored out of their minds, sitting in their freezing offices sorting through old paperwork, with only the occasional D&D crossing their desks to break the monotony. The inclement weather was keeping the criminally inclined indoors, and few sailors were particularly desperate to spend the New Year in the brig.  
Around the time most people were returning from lunch three days after Christmas, they received a startling relief from their boredom. The Admiral was standing in the bullpen, wondering how he could motivate his staff. The post-Christmas euphoria was already beginning to wear off, and Ops was almost completely silent.  
Every head snapped up at the ding of the elevator, and every set of eyes latched onto the man who stepped out. There was a faint military aura to his bearing, but he was not in uniform. He had no visible visitor's pass. He ran his eyes around the bullpen until they came to rest on the Admiral.  
"Admiral Chegwidden?"  
"And you are?"  
"That's not important." The Admiral crossed his arms and stared at the stranger.  
"Really. Who I am isn't important. Not as important as you, at least. I'm not the Judge Advocate General of the United States Navy."  
"Oh?" The Admiral's pose was growing more and more aggressive.  
"No. That would be you. A man in a position of great authority." The words sounded sarcastic without having a sarcastic tone to them. Those standing nearby began to slowly edge away.  
"Do you have a problem with that?" For all his years as a JAG officer, Chegwidden couldn't figure out where this conversation was going. He didn't recognise the man as anyone he had either defended or prosecuted. Perhaps a relative of someone who was in Leavenworth because of him?  
"No sir." He smiled, a funny little smile. "I do have a problem with what you do that authority." He reached out, and punched the Admiral squarely in the jaw. "A good man, who happens to be a friend of mine, is lying in a hospital bed at the moment because of the way you exercise your authority. There's a good chance he could die. And if he dies, people are gonna be lining up to take a swing at you, and right at the front of that line is gonna be his SEAL team. And they're gonna be pissed. Just thought you should know that, Admiral."  
He turned and walked back to the elevator, everyone too shocked to move. A Marine Corporal was the first person to come back to Earth, and he sprang to the elevator, punching the button to open the door before it could go down. The doors slid open with a chime.  
There was no-one in the elevator.  
  
Half an hour later, Sturgis' phone rang.  
"Commander Turner."  
"Did I break his jaw?"  
"Probably. He's on his way to Bethesda as we speak. Why in God's name did you do that?"  
"A week ago, Harmon Rabb saved my life, and the lives of a lot of other people. At great risk to his own. Anyone who had the nerve to tell him he's not a team player deserves what they get. It would be more fitting coming from his team, but the Admiral apparently met one of them once, so I got to do it."  
"You could be court-martialled for this."  
"They wanna court-martial me, tell them to go ahead. They'll have to find me first. Rabb's stable, but it's still too early to tell whether he's gonna wake up, and if he's going to recover if he does. I'll keep you informed."  
Before he could respond, Sturgis was met with the dial tone.  
  
Six weeks later, after a lot of short, abrupt phone calls in which he would be given a one-sentence update on his friend's condition, O'Neill called for a slightly longer conversation.  
"He woke up this morning."  
"How's he doing?"  
"Still weak. And the blow to his head's messed him up slightly. Pre- existing injury got complicated." Sturgis got the distinct impression some important information was being left out, but realised that O'Neill couldn't tell him everything. "He's not going to have the use of his arm for a while, which is gonna drive him nuts, which is gonna drive the rest of us nuts. At least last time he could still play the guitar."  
"Last time?"  
"Forget I said that. The Doc might let him out of bed by the end of the week. After that, we're gonna try and persuade him to take some leave."  
"Good luck with that. He relaxes by flying, building stuff and playing the guitar. If he can't do any of that, you're probably better off getting him something to do that needs a lot of thinking."  
"Thanks. I'll see what we can come up with. I'll keep you posted."  
"Thankyou, sir. Give him my best."  
"Sure."  
Sturgis put the phone down, and looked up to see Mac standing in the doorway. He forced down his panic. There was a good chance she wasn't there when he said the thing about flying, and that was the only thing that could've given away who it was he was talking about.  
"What was that about?"  
"An old friend was wounded in action a while ago. One of the guys he serves with has been keeping me up to date on his condition."  
"He gonna be okay?"  
"It's looking better than it was. Something I can do for you?"  
"I was looking for the Kemp file."  
  
THREE WEEKS LATER  
  
The Admiral was upset about something. You could see it in his shoulders. At the Monday morning staff meeting, the cold radiating off him could have solved the problem of global warming in a couple of seconds. It was unusual for the Admiral to be like this since his wedding. Meredith had mellowed him considerably. Which made it even harder for Sturgis to understand why he had treated Harm the way he did so soon after they had got engaged.  
After the Admiral had distributed the new cases, everyone noticed that there were still a couple of files that he hadn't given to anyone. Nervous glances were exchanged all round. If either of those files related to something any of them had done recently, the people involved were about to suffer.  
Mac summoned up the courage to speak, after Chegwidden had sat silently for nearly three minutes without dismissing the meeting.  
"Sir? Do you need someone to take those files?"  
"No, Colonel. It turns out that my complaints about being short- handed have finally been heard. We'll be getting another lawyer this afternoon, staying for a two month TAD. He can take these cases."  
"Why's he coming this afternoon? Why not start at the beginning of the day?"  
"Apparently there's something he needs to attend to this morning. The Secnav assures me he'll be ready to start promptly at 1300."  
Sturgis had a terrible feeling he knew what was coming next.  
"Mr Rabb will be using Commander Turner's old office. Dismissed." No- one moved. "I said "DISMISSED"!"  
At that, there was a scramble for the exit. Sturgis, however, decided to risk the Admiral's wrath just this once.  
"Sir?"  
"Yes, Commander?"  
"You don't seem pleased that we're getting some help."  
"Commander Rabb never treated this office with the respect it was due. He seemed to think he warranted special treatment, for some reason. The cavalier attitude with which he ran off down to Paraguay to find the Colonel just confirmed to me that he didn't take his duties as a JAG officer as seriously as he should have."  
"With all due respect, Admiral, he went to save a fellow officer from a slow, painful death."  
"I'm not questioning his actions, Commander. I'm questioning his attitude. And trying not to think of all the strings he must have pulled to get assigned back here, even temporarily. Dismissed, Commander."  
"Aye aye, sir."  
  
Sturgis made his way back to his office, and there he cloistered himself all morning. Every so often he would give up even the pretence of work, and think about what the Admiral had said. It was the first time he had ever heard the Admiral say anything so entirely unjustified.  
He'd referred to Harm as "Commander Rabb". Admittedly he was talking about the past, but it suggested he didn't even know about Harm's promotion. It almost as if he had been just told "Rabb'll be working for you for two months" and absolutely nothing further. He'd realised that whatever Harm was working at nowadays was classified, but this was ridiculous.  
He ate in the cafeteria, determined to be back in Ops when Harm arrived. It seemed that most of the staff had had the same idea, though some were being more discreet about it than others.  
  
Harm did not want to do this. He had already decided that if he ever found out whose idea it was to send him TAD to JAG while his arm healed, the culprit's body would be found face down in a river somewhere a couple of weeks later. The Admiral, judging by their last meeting, would take a perverse pleasure in making his life a living hell. Mac would resent him. Bud and Harriet wouldn't know how to act around him, and Sturgis had probably already been co-opted to act as a spy for Janet and make sure he didn't over-extend himself. As if he'd be able to over-extend himself on whatever choice pieces of drudgery the Admiral had picked out for him.  
The only pleasure he could forsee for the next two months would be the satisfying feeling of wearing a Trident without the Admiral's knowledge. It, like all the ribbons he had picked up since he left JAG, was hidden beneath the white muslin sling Janet had ordered him to wear to keep him from forgetting not to use his arm.  
He took a deep breath, and walked through the doors into the bullpen, headed for the Admiral's office. He was not halfway there when he heard Mac's voice behind him.  
"You're two minutes and seventeen seconds late, Commander." In the old days, the tone would have been teasing. This time, it was cold and reproving.  
Harm raised his right arm to rub his shoulder, drawing attention to the four stripes on the wrist of the blue uniform jacket that would still be in season for a few more weeks.  
"Would you care to repeat that, Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie?" He hadn't anticipated the spiteful pleasure he would be able to derive from throwing his promotion in Mac's face, the way she had seemed to rub hers in nearly five years before.  
Her jaw dropped a little, but she regained her composure with impressive speed.  
"Admiral Chegwidden's waiting for you in his office, sir."  
"Thankyou, Colonel." He continued on his way. He nodded to Coates as he entered the outer office.  
"Go right in, sir. He's waiting for you. I'll take your cover."  
"Thanks, Coates. If I never come out again, you can keep it as a souvenir." She smiled nervously.  
Good luck, sir."  
He grinned at her, and pushed open the door.  
  
Immediately, the bullpen burst into noise.  
  
Mac stood stock still, allowing the hubbub to flow around her.  
Harm had just pulled rank on her.  
Harm was able to pull rank on her.  
What the hell?  
  
Bud was staring at the doorway through which his former mentor had just disappeared.  
The Commander. no, the Captain didn't seem very pleased to be there. Why had he pulled strings to come back to JAG if he didn't want to be there?  
  
Harriet sank down into her chair.  
A scar stood out starkly on Harm's face. Where had he gotten a scar like that? What had he been doing? And how did he break his arm?  
  
Sturgis leaned against his doorframe, thoughtful. He hadn't been expecting Harm to be in great shape, but he looked worse than he had expected. Most people had probably been too surprised with his new rank, and hadn't seen him for too long, to realise just how thin he was. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunken in. A brief glimpse at his right hand and wrist had been enough to see his bones and tendons clearly visible through his skin. It was very easy to believe that he had spent well over a month in a coma.  
  
Harm came to attention in front of the Admiral's desk. Or as close to attention as you can come with one arm in a sling.  
"Captain Harmon Rabb Jr reporting as ordered, sir."  
The Admiral did not look up. He wrote several sentences onto the piece of paper in front of him, then dashed off his signature at the bottom. Then he looked up.  
"Captain?"  
"Yes sir."  
"Since when?"  
"August, sir."  
"I see." And he did see. But he saw a distorted image. He saw a man who, finding himself with nothing to lose, had latched onto some important political figure like glue, and bought himself a promotion through political influence.  
Silence reigned for a while.  
"You'll be using Commander Turner's old office. The files you'll be starting with are already in there. Any questions?"  
"No, sir."  
"How long before your left arm will be useable?"  
"The doctor doesn't want me using it for at least another month. I'll be seeing her again in three weeks to determine whether that changes."  
"They sent me a lawyer who can't drive himself around?"  
"So it would appear, sir."  
"Mr Rabb, I don't care whose influence got you here. In front of junior officers, I will remember your rank, as to fail to do so would be to the detriment of good order and discipline. But I want it clear that I have no respect for a man who would pull strings behind my back to get himself assigned, even temporarily, to my office when I have made it perfectly clear in the past that I don't approve of your attitude to this command. You repeatedly during your time here failed to treat this office and your position in it with the respect they deserve and. something funny, Mr Rabb?"  
Harm couldn't contain his laughter any more. Janet had been right to worry about whether his head injury had knocked loose something which Harm had only had a tenuous grip on since his ordeal with Apollo.  
"Are you listening to yourself, sir? Every single thing you just said is based on one unfounded assumption or another. You don't think I respected JAG the way I should have. If I didn't respect JAG, why did I always go further for my clients than anyone else would have? Why did I search for the truth at all cost, in search of the justice JAG is supposed to represent? Why did I try to keep my personal problems with Lieutenant Singer out of the office? Why did I resign my commission before going to Paraguay instead of just going UA? Why did I put everything on the line for a fellow officer and colleague? And why the hell did I ask to come back when I was done?"  
"That's enough, Mr Rabb." Chegwidden came to his feet, leaning forward on his knuckles.  
"I'm not finished, sir. What makes you think I pulled strings to come here? Do you think JAG's the best billet the Navy could offer me? I've had a better life where I've been for the last few months than I even dreamed of in my last year at JAG. You think I was desperate to come back to the people who shunned me when I was accused of a crime they should have known I didn't commit, to serve under the man who said I wasn't a team player, in spite of all the things I've ever done for him and the other people I was stationed with? The man who once sent me into Columbia with a SEAL team when I wasn't qualified to make the insertion jump? The man who treated me like dirt because I left his command to recapture a dream that had been taken from me and was one of the only links I had left to my father? The man who would never let me forget mistakes I made? Who tested my objectivity by putting me on a case I requested to be removed from, knowing I didn't think I could be objective, when he never tested anyone else the same way? Who said the kid had the right to choose his defence counsel, and then denied me the same right a few months later? You think I'm that much of a masochist?  
"That's not funny, sir. That's hysterical. I asked not to be sent here, Admiral. I was overruled."  
The Admiral was rooted to the spot. He moved his mouth, but no sound came out. Harm couldn't tell whether it was out of anger or shock, but he didn't really want to stick around to find out.  
"I enjoyed my first years at JAG, sir. But then it turned sour, and I found a place for myself where doing what's right doesn't get you into trouble, where mistakes made in the heat of the moment don't get thrown back in your face. Write me up for disrespect, sir, but if you think JAG Headquarters is my dream billet after everything you did to me, you're an arrogant son of a bitch."  
With that, he executed an about-face, and got out of the office as fast as he could without breaking into a run.  
  
When he reached the bullpen, the shell-shocked expressions of everyone there told Harm that every single person had heard every single word he had said.  
Making eye contact with nobody, he made his way to his new office. The blinds were drawn, so when he slammed the door behind him, he was able to collapse to the ground without the risk of being seen. He propped himself up against the desk and sat there, shaking uncontrollably.  
  
It took Sturgis only a couple of seconds to make it to his old office. Uncertain of what he would find inside, he opened the door only a crack, slipping inside quickly and shutting the door behind him.  
The only people he had ever seen shaking in anything like the way Harm was had been junkies in withdrawal. He knew this wasn't the case for Harm, but seeing his friend in that position moved Sturgis deeply.  
Harm's eyes were glazed over slightly, unfocused. Hoping to somehow get through to him, Sturgis knelt beside him and touched him lightly on the arm.  
Immediately his wrist was held in an iron grip, and he looked up to see Harm staring at him, anger mixed with terror in his eyes.  
"quis es?"  
"Harm? What.? "  
"me audivisti. quis es?"  
"Harm, I can't understand what you're saying."  
"mendax es." He looked around, panicked. "ubi sum? quid mihi fecisti?" His eyes went back to Sturgis' face, and the anger left them. "me adiuva!"  
Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell still, leaving Sturgis with absolutely no idea what to do.  
Offering up a silent prayer that no-one else would take it upon themselves to find out what was going on in the office, he lifted up Harm, whose body was worryingly light, and dragged him round the desk to the chair. He then took Harm's wrist and felt for a pulse. It was erratic, but it was strong. Sturgis was just about to risk going out into the bullpen to get some cold water when Harm's eyes snapped open, and he groaned.  
"Harm? You okay, buddy?"  
When Harm spoke, his voice was weak. "How long do I have before the Admiral comes to his senses and decides to kill me?"  
"I have no idea. I have never heard anyone yell at him like that before. I don't think there's anyone in Falls Church who didn't hear you."  
"I told them not to send me here. I knew something like this would happen."  
"If it's any consolation, what you said to him sounded like it made sense."  
"Yeah well, I think calling him an arrogant son of a bitch at the end kinda cancels that out. Well, the Admiral's got one thing to be happy about. I kinda proved him right about the respect thing. de tis allawn pote kresoi;"  
"What?"  
"What?"  
"What's the last sentence you just said?"  
"'And who could ask for anything more?' Why, what did you think I said?"  
"Nothing, I just didn't hear you clearly."  
Harm nodded for a moment, then stopped and looked sharply at his old friend.  
"I wasn't speaking English, was I?"  
"No."  
Harm sighed and leaned back in the chair. "Damn."  
"Harm, what the hell happened to you?"  
"That is more classified than you can possibly imagine."  
"You gonna be okay?"  
Harm let out a hollow laugh. "Jury's still out on that one."  
  
Five minutes after Harm stormed out of his office, Chegwidden still hadn't moved. Then he jerked out of his stupor, and made his way to the door of his office.  
"Coates?"  
"Sir?"  
"Get me Captain Rabb's service record."  
"Aye aye sir."  
Then he closed the door, and moved to stare out of his window.  
  
"Harm, I should get back to work. You need anything? Water, coffee, aspirin?"  
"No, thanks. But I'd appreciate it if you could get my cover back from Coates. I don't think going near the Admiral's office at the moment would be very good for my health."  
"Sure."  
  
He was back a minute later.  
"Here's your cover."  
"Thanks."  
"The Admiral's got Coates looking for your service record."  
"It's not gonna be any use to him."  
"Harm, from what O'Neill told me, you've picked up at least two Purple Hearts in the last few months. Even if the reason you got them is classified, he'll still learn you were injured in combat."  
"No he won't. Outside certain circles, there's not a person on this Earth who'd be able to work out what I've been doing from what's written in my service record since I left JAG. What isn't simply blocked off as classified is expressed in terms you need to already know the meaning of in order to interpret correctly. The only way the Admiral's gonna find anything out is if I tell him, which I won't 'cause it's classified."  
"Some people in the CIA owe him favours."  
"And if he tried to call them in, the Company will learn they're not omniscient, and the world as we know it will end."  
"If you say so. I gotta go, meeting with Mac in five minutes. You gonna need a ride anywhere after work? I drove in this morning because it was raining."  
"I'm just going back to my apartment. I can get a driver."  
"Let me give you a ride. I can fill you in on all the office gossip."  
"You're listening to office gossip? Maybe the world as we know it's already ended, I just didn't notice."  
"See you later, man."  
"Have fun with Mac."  
  
Towards the end of the working day, Harm received a summons to the Admiral's office. Taking with him one of his files, which he was already finished with, he once more prepared to brave the lion's den. The looks he received as he passed were mixed. Some people regarded him with awe, others with trepidation. Harriet looked concerned, and he smiled at her as he passed.  
Coates looked at him with relief. She had been on the receiving end of the Admiral's bad mood all day. Harm's presence would mean a change of focus for that bad mood, and for that she would be eternally grateful.  
  
"Captain Rabb."  
"Sir. I've completed the work you wanted done on the Tennyson file." The young Lieutenant had struck a superior officer in front of witnesses. To compound the matter, he had been both enebriated and on duty at the time. Harm had spoken to his lawyer on the phone, knowing that it would be the work of minutes to arrange a plea-bargain. Harm couldn't but feel sorry for the kid. Someone going through life with the name Alfred Tennyson was bound to have some serious issues.  
"Good. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."  
"Sir?"  
"Would you care to explain why your service record since last May could be held up as a text-book example of how to say a whole hell of a lot without letting anyone have the faintest idea what you're talking about? Whoever's been writing it should consider a career in politics."  
"I'm not at liberty to discuss anything pertaining to my recent service with you, Admiral."  
Chegwidden stared at him. Harm didn't flinch under his piercing gaze.  
  
"That'll be all, Captain. You can secure for the day at 1700. Be in your office no later than 0800 tomorrow morning, there'll be some more work waiting for you. Dismissed."  
"Aye aye, sir." There was frost coming off Chegwidden, but he had kept the interview purely business-related. Perhaps he wasn't going to kill him after all, Harm pondered as he wandered back to his office. Or perhaps the old SEAL was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. He would wait and see what the morning would bring before forming any conclusions on that score.  
"cras novus dies erit" he muttered to himself as he passed Harriet's desk.  
"Sir? Did you say something?"  
"Just talking to myself, Lieutenant. Nothing to worry about." ~Or at least, nothing for you to worry about.~  
  
To Harm's surprise, getting back into the swing of things at JAG wasn't as difficult as he had expected. He spend most of his time in his temporary office, doing grunt work that would have better befitted a Lieutenant j.g. than a Captain, but his physical inability to do much more prevented that from becoming too much of an issue. He worked with his blinds closed, painfully aware that he did not yet have full control over either his body or his thoughts, but made a point of leaving his office at least once an hour to stretch his legs a little, normally exchanging a casual word or two with anyone who happened to be in the bullpen or break room.  
Chegwidden didn't speak to him if he could avoid it, but there were no further blow-ups. Mac avoided him like the plague, but the friendliness of other people went a long way to make up for that, and Harm wasn't even sure he wanted to talk to her. She had hurt him deeply in Paraguay, in a number of different ways, and he wasn't sure he was ready to put that entirely behind him. He was having enough problems with his emotions of late without trying to determine what his precise feelings towards Mac were.  
Listening to Bud and Harriet talk about little Jimmy, a week and a half into his sojourn at JAG, he found himself idly wondering whether Bud realised he had a time-bomb on his hands. Being named after a character from Star Trek was the sort of thing you never, ever forgave your parents for. A bit like violently red hair, only more traumatising.  
As Bud described something cute the baby had done the previous day, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in his body's reaction to sensing the presence of naquadah. He looked up at the elevator doors. Three seconds later, they dinged open.  
"How did you do that, sir?"  
"What?"  
"You knew the elevator was about to arrive."  
"Lucky guess, Bud." For all he knew, whoever it was could have been coming up the stairs.  
Two Marine MPs stepped out of the elevator and entered the bullpen, a handcuffed Corporal walking between them. At the sight of Harm, he froze for a fraction of a second, then sprang into action. He grabbed the sidearm of the Marine on his left, and holding it awkwardly fired off three rounds at Harm before the gun was wrested from him.  
The Corporal did not resist the MPs' attempts to subdue him. He stared at Harm, as people rushed into the bullpen from all directions.  
"You're the one. He wanted to find you. They'll reward him if he brings you back alive. I can't let that happen. Can't let them reward him."  
Bud found his voice.  
"Sergeant, what's this man accused of?"  
"Murder, sir. He says a voice in his head told him to do it, but he's refusing to plead guilty. Says he wasn't in control of his actions."  
Harm, oblivious to the blood soaking his shirt and jacket from where two of the bullets had passed through his left shoulder, took a step towards the young Marine, completely ignoring the stares of the JAG personnel.  
"Why were they going to reward him?" The Corporal seemed slightly confused at being taken seriously, but he did not hesitate long in answering.  
"You killed one of them. So they sent him after you. And some others."  
"How many others?"  
"He didn't know. But he didn't think they were nearby."  
"How did he get here?"  
"He was here to start with. He was hiding. But after he first saw you, he started to move around. He wanted to be the one to get you."  
"How long ago did he leave you?"  
"Two weeks."  
"Where is he now?"  
"I don't know, sir." Tears poured down his face. "I'm sorry, sir."  
"It's okay, Corporal. I know how you feel."  
"You can't let him win, sir."  
"I won't. You have my word. They're not gonna take me alive again."  
The Corporal nodded, then the MPs led him away. Harm swayed on his feet, leaning on a nearby filing cabinet to keep himself from collapsing.  
Mac, the distance between them momentarily forgotten, was at his side in an instant.  
"Harm? You okay?"  
"I think I'm gonna go with 'no'."  
"You were hit! Somebody call an ambulance!"  
"Belay that order. I'm not going to hospital."  
Admiral Chegwidden's voice came booming over to them. "Captain Rabb, you will go to Bethesda and let them take a look at you, and that's an order."  
"Admiral, with all due respect, I can't go to Bethesda."  
"Why not?"  
"That's classified, sir."  
"You're beginning to sound like Clayton Webb, Captain."  
Harm's eyes flashed in anger in response to that comment.  
Literally flashed. Bright yellow.  
  
If Harm's first struggle with Apollo had been great, it paled in comparison to what he was experiencing now. It was like thinking a nursery rhyme was great, then hearing Homer recited in the original Greek. There was really no comparison.  
~I killed you. I felt you surrender. Felt you die.~  
~Yes. I died. But I was not destroyed. You won't let me be destroyed, Tau'ri. You can't.~  
~You're not real. You're a figment of my imagination.~  
~My my, aren't we arrogant. Are all the Tau'ri of your generation so full of their own importance? What do you know of existence, human?~  
~I know dead people don't talk.~  
~Surely you're not that naïve. You've seen Goa'uld sarcophagi. You've seen people return from the dead. To say someone is dead is to paraphrase the perfect tense, which really means that someone is in the state of having died. Then those who rise again are dead, yet you have heard them speak. You have seen their actions affect the fate of the living.~  
~They still had bodies to return to. Your body was absorbed into mine.~  
~But I am you, Harmon Rabb.~  
~No, you're not. You're the Goa'uld who spread plagues in Thebes and Athens. You're the Goa'uld who used your Oracles to shape human history the way you wanted it shaped. You're not me.~  
~But you have my memories. The memories of my experiences. It is our experiences that shape who we are, that is a human philosophy. If you recall doing something, that must shape your life as surely as the action itself would. So I have no independent existence any more. So I will forever be a shadow over your soul. When a cloud is greater than the sun whose light it blocks, the sun is no longer visible to those on the ground. The shadow has control, the shadow is dominant.~  
~I won't let your ghost control me.~  
~Really? Then why do you catch yourself talking and thinking in tongues long dead? Why do you make notes on your cases and only afterwards realise that the script is Sanskrit? If I don't control you, how does that happen? You cannot tell where you end and I begin. My memories are more vast and more powerful than those of Harmon Rabb Junior. He is but one drop of water in the ocean of my consciousness.~  
~I'm Harmon Rabb.~  
~Then why do your colleagues back away from you in terror? Is that who Harmon Rabb is? A man to be feared by those closest to him?~  
~I AM HARMON RABB!~  
  
He forced his way to the surface, regaining the feel of his body, the searing pain in his shoulder. Taking the risk of standing unsupported, he felt in his pocket for his cellphone. He forced his hand to remain steady while he hit the first number on his speed-dial and held the phone up to his ear.  
  
"It's Captain Rabb. Put me through to the General."  
  
"Sir, it's Hammer. There's an Ashrak loose in DC."  
  
"Unknown, sir. But I do know he's leaving his former hosts alive."  
  
"One just tried to kill me at JAG, sir."  
  
"I think that'd be wise, sir."  
  
"Yes sir. Thankyou, sir. Sir?"  
  
"Could you send Janet with them, sir?"  
  
The phone fell from his grasp and broke open on the floor as Harm swayed, catching hold of the filing cabinet once again before leaning his back against it and sliding to the ground.  
Chegwidden took this opportunity to regain control over his chaotic office. Sending off a couple of Petty Officers to find first aid kits, he pulled off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and knelt by Harm's side. Harm's eyes met his as the younger man offered him a weak smile.  
"Sorry if I get blood everywhere, sir." The Admiral felt his heart begin to soften. He could tell Harm was in a great deal of pain.  
"Not as sorry as you will be, Captain. The cleaning bill's coming out of your pay."  
He pulled the sling from Harm's arm, intending to see whether he could remove Harm's jacket without causing him further pain. But that intention fled from his thoughts as he saw what Harm had worn hidden beneath the white muslin. Harm, fighting back both the lure of unconsciousness and the sound of Apollo's laughter, knew what the Admiral was looking at. With a great effort, he held his voice steady as he spoke.  
"Hoo-yah, sir."  
That pulled the Admiral from his trance, and he carefully pulled Harm's arm out of his jacket sleeve, not pausing to look at the ribbons which decorated his chest. He then undid Harm's shirt and pulled it open to take a look at the bullet wounds. Once again he was stunned by what he saw. Harm's ribs were easily visible, the skin that covered them pale and cold to the touch. It was criscrossed with white scars which reflected the light of the bullpen with a silky sheen which brought thoughts of death to the old SEAL's mind.  
"What in God's name happened to you, Harm?"  
It was the first time the Admiral had used Harm's given name since well before Harm had left JAG.  
Harm was still struggling to stay awake.  
"You don't. wanna know. sir. Really. don't."  
"Save your strength. Don't try to talk. Where the hell are those first aid kits?"  
Sturgis, just now out of Court, crouched down beside them, holding out a first aid kit to the Admiral.  
"Dear God. He looks even worse than I thought he would. Guess I shouldn't be surprised."  
AJ snapped his head round to look at him.  
"You knew about this?"  
"Yes sir. Not the details, but his general condition."  
"You never said anything."  
"You never asked, sir. I got the distinct impression you didn't care. You never even wondered what happened to his arm."  
"I assumed it was broken."  
"He let me take a look at it, sir. It was burnt practically down to the bone. They had to give him tissue grafts from other parts of his body to give it even a chance of healing, the muscles were almost completely gone."  
"How did it happen?"  
"Some sort of explosion. He couldn't tell me more than that."  
The Admiral dabbed some alcohol onto the open bullet wounds. Harm's spine arched with the pain, but he made no sound. Not even the hiss of breath escaping between clenched teeth. Sturgis grabbed his chin and looked into his eyes. The light in them was beginning to dull. Harm was losing the battle for alertness.  
The Admiral pulled Harm's other arm out of jacket and made to fold it up, intending to use it as a pillow. As he did so, he caught sight of Harm's fruit salad. There had been a number of additions since he had last taken a good look at it.  
Another Silver Star. Two Bronze Stars. Three Purple Hearts. A POW medal.  
But the most significant addition was the one which lay just below his wings. AJ heard Sturgis gasp as the other man laid eyes on it.  
The Congressional Medal of Honor.  
  
"Cavalry's here."  
There was something familiar about the voice that rang through Ops as nine people entered, eight in green BDUs and one in the uniform of an Air Force Major.  
Desperately trying to remember where they had seen the speaker before, the crowd parted to allow the group through. The Major, who was carrying some sort of medical kit, pushed the Admiral out of the way to get access to Harm. The man who had spoken, who wore eagles on his collar, leant over her.  
"How does he look, Doc?"  
"He could be worse, Colonel, but he's not in the phyiscal shape to deal with an injury like this."  
"Harm, it's Jack. Hang in there, Janet's gonna take good care of you."  
"What. the hell. took you. so long?"  
"Carter was washing her hair."  
Sam, who was speaking to Mac in an effort to find out what exactly had transpired, grinned over at Harm.  
"Don't listen to him, sir. I was actually having a manicure."  
"That's. okay. then."  
"Hey, you're the guy who decked the Admiral after Christmas!"  
Jack shot Bud a glare, then turned back to Harm.  
"Thought you Squids had a saying about loose lips sinking ships?"  
"Doesn't. apply. to Zoomies."  
"Colonel? Could I talk to you for a second."  
"Sure."  
  
Sam and Jack moved away from the main body of the crowd so that no- one could hear what they were saying.  
"What's up?"  
"Colonel MacKenzie said that when the Admiral said something that pissed him off, Hammer's eyes glowed. From how she described it, I assume she meant the way they do when a Goa'uld takes control, or is trying to make a point."  
"You're telling me he's got another snake in his head?"  
"No sir. I'm sensing the presence of naquadah in his bloodstream, and the feeling I get around former hosts, but I'm ninety-nine percent sure there's no living Goa'uld."  
"So why'd his eyes glow?"  
"I don't know sir."  
"Can you make your own eyes glow?"  
"I wouldn't know how to go about trying, sir."  
"So there's a chance he did it himself without realising it."  
"Yes sir. But if it is that, we might have a bigger problem."  
"Of course. There's always a bigger problem."  
"Sir, when I first experienced Jolinar's memories, I had no control over them. And I experienced them as though it was actually me doing all those things. During the memories, I was Jolinar. Given the different nature of the way Apollo died inside Hammer, Hammer's likely to have absorbed far more of Apollo's memories than I did of Jolinar's. That's borne out by the way he sometimes changes languages without realising it, and can remember so much literature and history as if he was there when it was written."  
"So?"  
"So with his memories, the chances are Captain Rabb absorbed part of Apollo's personality. There could be a part of him that thinks he is Apollo, and can remember how to do things like make his eyes flash. There's no way of telling in advance how strong that part of him is, and whether it's likely to completely take control of him, without deep psychological probing. Or none that I can see. Anger seemed to set him off last time, but from what Colonel MacKenzie described, it looks like he was able to regain control fairly quickly."  
"Damnit. Keep asking questions, and try and find out everything you can about the guy who shot him. I'll think of a way to get Rabb out of here."  
He walked back over to Janet.  
"Can we move him?"  
"We're gonna have to. Can't just keep him lying on the floor like this."  
"Admiral, do you have an office we could take him to?"  
"Sure. Commander Turner'll show you the way." He raised his voice. "Listen up, people. I can't see any more work getting done now, so you can all secure for the day. Anyone who's not a close personal friend of Captain Rabb is to be out of here within ten minutes, and until we're able to determine the Captain's condition and launch an investigation into the shooting, you're all under orders not to talk about this to anyone, even amongst yourselves. There's a possibility that to do so would put the Captain at further risk."  
There was a sudden wave of motion. When the Admiral said ten minutes, it was best to be done in five to be on the safe side  
  
Ten minutes later, JAG Ops was empty except for the SGC personnel, Bud, Harriet, Mac, Sturgis and the Admiral. Harm had been laid down on the Admiral's desk.  
Janet was bent over Harm's chest, poking and prodding him with various instruments. With the exception of the uninjured members of SG-6, who hovered over him with an aura of fierce protectiveness, everyone else kept their distance.  
Jack kept a wary distance from the Admiral, but knew the conversation was inevitable, and made no serious attempt to deflect Chegwidden when he began to talk to him.  
"Would you care to explain your behaviour at Christmas, Colonel?"  
"I explained it at the time, sir. And with what you've seen today, I'd imagine you're able to put the pieces together yourself."  
"Rabb was the injured friend?"  
"Yes sir. He was in a coma. He didn't wake up until mid-February."  
"How is that my fault?"  
"If you hadn't tried to process his resignation, he'd never have been in a position to come and work with us, and he'd never have gotten injured."  
Before AJ could rebut that statement, Janet spoke up.  
"Sir, I don't think I can keep him from falling into a coma. And I don't think he'd wake up this time."  
Jack swore. "What do you suggest?"  
"I don't know, sir." Frank Cody took this opportunity to speak up. "Thor owes us a favour, sir. Remember what happened in October?"  
"Sounds like a plan. Janet, any problems with that?"  
"No sir. Freyr's aboard the Carter at the moment, and if Freyr can't help him, no-one can."  
Jack looked around at the JAG officers, who stood there with blank faces.  
"You guys can all keep a secret, right?"  
The Admiral bristled.  
"You ever heard of attorney-client privilege, Colonel?"  
"Okay. As of right now, you're all my lawyers. I'm probably gonna need you all if this doesn't work. What you're about to see is classified. Really, really classified. You talk, bad things will happen. Got it? Good." He pulled what looked like a pearl egg out of his pocket.  
"Thor? You got room for some guests up there, little buddy? Rabb's been shot and we figured you can fix him up. And there's a few people here who could cause a whole lot of trouble if they don't get to see what's going on."  
{Very well, O'Neill} The voice filled the room, and there was a flash of blinding white light.  
  
On board the Carter, SG-1 and SG-6 relaxed. They were far more at home here than in a legal office. Dr Fraiser, who rarely left Earth, ignored their change in location and continued to monitor Harm's condition, as he lay on a large metallic table.  
The lawyers and Harriet reacted in a slightly different manner.  
Harriet let out a small yelp, and grabbed onto her husband's arm. Bud the sci-fi nut was looking around as if he had just discovered the lost continent of Atlantis.  
Mac and the Admiral both looked around in wide-eyed astonishment.  
Sturgis just nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. As strange as this might seem, and as sceptical as he had always been about things like this, it actually made some degree of sense.  
  
Thor entered the room in which they had arrived. "Welcome to the Carter, SG-1, SG-6. I am sorry, I do not know the identities of the rest of you."  
"Thor, these fine folks are Admiral Chegwidden, Commander Sturgis Turner, Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, Lieutenant Bud.?"  
"Roberts. Bud Roberts. And this is my wife Harriet."  
"You are all most welcome here."  
"This is so amazing. It's like Star Trek meets the X-files."  
"Oh for cryin' out loud. Nobody told me he was a Trekkie. I would not have brought him if I'd known he was a god-damn Trekkie. Not telling anyone about this is going to kill you, isn't it?"  
"I can keep my mouth shut, sir."  
"As you did so well a few minutes ago."  
"If someone's got a Ribbon Device, I might be able to help."  
The others all span round. In front of them stood Harmon Rabb, grinning rogueishly with his shirt hanging open, the scars on his chest fainter than they had been and the bullet wounds completely gone. Beside him, seeming even smaller than usual by comparison, was Freyr. Whilst the JAG officers were getting over their surprise at seeing Harm healed so quickly, Jack answered him.  
"I think we can rustle one up. Why?"  
"I can erase the last couple of minutes from Bud and Harriet's memories. Make them think they secured for the day when the Admiral sent everyone else home. Thor beams them back into the elevator at JAG, they walk out to their car and go and pick up the kids none the wiser, and Bud doesn't run the risk of making an ass of himself on the internet."  
Sam looked at him thoughtfully.  
"You think you can use a Ribbon Device with that much precision, sir?"  
"I've had a few thousand years to practise."  
"You mean Apollo did."  
"Yeah. It's just simpler to say it as though it was me."  
Sam cast a worried look at Jack, who shook his head minutely. Now was not the time to talk about this.  
"Thor, you keep a few Goa'uld souvenirs around. You got a Ribbon Device?"  
"Indeed, O'Neill." He gave a slow wave of his hand, and one appeared suspended in the air in front of Harm.  
Mac, Sturgis and AJ had given up trying to follow what was going on. They just nodded and smiled, and watched in wide-eyed wonder as Harm fitted the device onto his right hand and held it out in front of him. A sort of shockwave of distortion passed from the device first to Bud's forehead and then to Harriet's. Harm looked over at Thor and nodded. There was a flash of light, and the two of them disappeared.  
"Watch them on your sensors for a while. I think it worked, but it wouldn't hurt to be careful."  
"It will be as you suggest, Captain Rabb. Now I suggest you get some rest. You may use the quarters you were assigned last time you visited this vessel."  
"Thanks. See you later." And he turned and left the room without a backward glance. Thor looked at Freyr  
"What is his condition?"  
"Physically, he will heal. But the amalgamation of Goa'uld physiology into his own has affected his brain chemistry. It was not apparent when I first had the opportunity to examine him, but in the months since then an imbalance has developed, possibly as a result of his head trauma.  
"Are you saying Hammer's got a screw loose?" Frank butted in, his tone aggrieved.  
"That is not what I meant to imply, Commander Cody. However, I am concerned about the possibility of the dead symbiote's memories attaining dominance in his mind, and overpowering his own personality. Mjolnir's personality is strong, but there are parts of him which desire an escape from pain, and could allow him to simply give in. Two things in particular appear to be causing this. There is a part of him which still longs for the father he lost as a child, and another part which hurts as a result of his interactions over the years with Colonel MacKenzie.  
Mac shifted uncomfortably. From what little she could really be said to understand of what the little grey man was saying (and she was still having trouble getting past the fact that the little grey man was there, let alone that he was saying things vitally important to Harm's welfare), the way she and Harm had argued over the years, with Paraguay possibly playing a large part here, was contributing to a condition which could lead to something really bad happening to Harm's mind. She wasn't quite sure exactly what it was, but from the way the people who knew what was going on were looking at each other, it was quite possibly a fate worse than death.  
Freyr studied Mac for a few moments, blinking slowly a couple of times.  
"I am not sure how the first problem can be resolved. However, I believe that a conversation between the Colonel and Captain Rabb may help shed light on the other. Colonel, if you follow the green-lit panels on the walls, you will come to the quarters where Captain Rabb is resting. It may well be very beneficial for you to talk to him."  
Mac nodded, he mouth slightly open, and wordlessly crossed to the place where Harm had left the room. She immediately saw the green panels the grey man had mentioned, and walked down the corridor in the direction they indicated.  
Freyr then turned to Admiral Chegwidden. He was gentling massaging his temples.  
"Admiral, you appear to have a headache. If you would come with me, I can attempt to determine the cause of this headache, and perhaps be able to cure it."  
AJ looked over at Sturgis.  
"Go, sir. All this may be strange, but everyone else seems to trust these people. I don't see why we shouldn't. If I go anywhere, I'll ask them to let you know."  
AJ nodded, and followed Freyr out of the room by a different exit to the one Harm and Mac had left via.  
  
Silence fell for a moment, and Sturgis cocked his head at Sam.  
"Major, you and this ship have the same name. Is that a coincidence?"  
"No sir."  
"They used to have a ship called the O'Neill, you know. Carter blew it up, so they named this one after her."  
"She blew it up?"  
"Long story. What do you know about Harm's father?"  
"He was shot down in 1969. He was sent to Russia as a POW, where he was kept in captivity until 1980, when he escaped. He spent two years with a young Russian woman and her brother, and fathered a son by her. He never met the son; he was shot dead by Russian soldiers who were trying to rape the girl, and buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the nearby Tiaga. Why?"  
"I wanted to make sure I'd got it right. Freyr said Harm still needs his father. He's a good man. We can't afford to lose him, or what he knows, and that's what'll happen if his personality is taken over by a dead snake."  
"I can't pretend to understand that, but even if I did, what does knowing about Harm's father do to help?"  
"If we know how and when he died, we can go get him."  
"What?"  
"He was buried in an unmarked grave. No-one knew about him except the girl and her brother. Rabb told me all the Russian soldiers were killed, and the brother died not that long after. We can get him and bring him here without history being affected."  
Teal'c, who had said nothing since first arriving at JAG, raised an eyebrow at looked at Daniel, who looked at Sam, who shrugged. "It could work."  
"But that would mean. travelling through time."  
Jack gave a small smile. "Yeah. It would."  
  
Harm was staring out of a window when Mac found him, his left arm hanging slightly bent at his side. Even the Asgard could not spontaneously regrow all the tissue that would be needed for the arm to work properly again, though they were able to help to some extent.  
Although Mac did not think she had made any noise, Harm turned to look at her. He gave her a half-smile, then turned his gaze back to the window. Mac walked up to stand a little behind him.  
"There's no glass!"  
Harm chuckled. "Reach out and touch it." She cast him a dubious look. "Touch it, go on. Nothing bad will happen."  
Still doubtful, she slowly extended her hand to the apparently empty space.  
There was a soft buzz, and Mac felt a slight jolt in her fingers. She drew them back sharply. The window space had gleamed briefly with a soft yellow light.  
"What the?"  
"Force-field. Glass can't withstand the forces that act on the ship when she goes into hyperspace."  
"Hyperspace?"  
"Come on Mac, don't try and tell me you've never seen Star Wars."  
Out of the corner of her eye, Mac saw something gleaming outside the window, down to the left. She looked directly at it, and stopped breathing.  
"That's Earth."  
"Really? Imagine that."  
"We're in orbit around Earth?"  
"That's the general idea." His eyes met hers and he grinned.  
"How can you be so calm about this?"  
"I've been in weirder places, trust me."  
Mac lowered her eyes, and found herself staring at his chest. Without realising what she was doing, she reached out and ran her fingers over the place where the bullets had hit him, less than half an hour before.  
"See something you like, Marine?" She blushed, and her hand went back to her side. Something slammed shut behind Harm's eyes, and he looked back at the small blue-green planet below.  
"Harm? What's wrong?"  
He sighed. "To quote the dying words of a King Charles of Spain, I forget which one, 'I hurt'."  
"Can't the little grey guys do anything?"  
"It's not that sort of pain, Mac. It's a pain I've always had, in one form or another. You always seemed to expect me to be able to deal with the pain by myself, then come to you afterwards, without any of my flaws, and when I couldn't do that, you chose not to help me. Or when you tried to help, you didn't understand the problem and just made it worse." There was very little bitterness in his voice, only a strange kind of resignation.  
"Harm? I don't understand."  
He walked over to a table in the corner, next to a long thin bed. He picked something up, and came back to stand in front of her.  
"You see this, Mac? This is a Goa'uld Healing Device. They work by mind power, though only a few people can use them." He slipped the band behind the small disk over the back of his hand, so that the circular part of the hand-sized device lay flat on his palm. He held it up to his face, where the white scar still marred the visage Mac knew so well.  
"I know where my injury is, Mac. I can use this to partly heal it." A look of stern concentration crossed his face, and as the disc glowed, the scar where it skirted his eye began to vanish. He lowered the device.  
"Feel my face, Mac."  
She put her fingers to where the scar had been. Though the skin on the surface was soft, beneath her touch she noticed that there was still a ridge in the flesh.  
"See Mac? I can cover it up by myself, but that doesn't get rid of the injury itself. Now take my hand, and guide it over the wound. Put your own thoughts into healing the whole injury, not just patching it or hiding it."  
He raised his hand again, and she did as he asked. Together, they erased the line that marked his face. Moved by wonder, Mac reached up to feel his face again. This time, she couldn't even feel the ridge where the scar had been.  
"How did I.?"  
"You didn't. I'm the one who healed myself. In the end, you can only ever heal yourself. But you guided my actions. You showed me exactly where the hurt was, and your desire to help encouraged me and lent me strength."  
"Like when you told me to visit my father before he died?"  
"I like to think so."  
"But I never did that for you." It was a statement, but Harm knew she needed him to explain it.  
"You tried to do it. Once, in Russia. But that wound was too big, even with you helping me. You helped slow the bleeding, but the wound didn't heal. After that, you never tried to help me heal myself. When I went back to flying, you tried to stop me. When I came back, you resented me. When I knew in Australia that I wasn't ready for a relationship, you threw me aside for someone easier than me, simpler than me. At your engagement party, you tried to break down my walls. But all you did was pull the scabs off unhealed wounds, and make them bleed again. On the Guadalcanal, I tried to do it your way, but you ran without waiting to hear my answer. When I was a judge, you accused me of bias before the case even started. When I was in the brig, you didn't try to help me, or even to see me. Before you went to Paraguay, you asked if I was okay but didn't know I wasn't, then you hurled your accusation in my face and walked out the door. And in Paraguay, I had just metaphorically stabbed myself in the stomach to save your life, and not only did you not try and help me heal, you took the knife and twisted it, thanking everyone except me for saving you."  
Mac stared at him, unable to speak. She had always been so aware of the hurt he had caused her, mostly inadvertantly she realised, that it had never occurred to her that she could well have given him far greater pain far more often.  
He was watching her. "I'm trying not to hold any of that against you, Mac. I can't afford to. Feeling that much anger would bring me one step closer to letting Apollo take control, and if that happens I'll lose myself. But even if I'm not angry, I can't make the hurt go away, unless you help me. And I don't think I can take the hurt much longer." There was a plaintive note to his final words, and Mac found herself stepping closer to him, resting her head against his shoulder. "Help me, Mac."  
"I'll try, Harm. I'll try."  
  
AJ looked at Freyr in astonishment only part due to the fact that he was an alien.  
"I have what?"  
"There is no human term for the condition. Your physicians are unfamiliar with it. Most humans who contract the syndrome live with it unawares, in many cases dying as a result. You, however, are more fortunate. I am able to help you. It is a painless procedure, and will take only a few moments. Its cause is a simple one, and so it is simple to cure if one knows what one is doing. Lie back. The pain will be gone soon."  
  
"I can't believe we're having a serious conversation about going 22 years back in time to save the life of an American POW living in the wilds of Siberia."  
"You think this is a crazy conversation? Last time we went back in time, we met a younger version of our CO and borrowed some money off him. When we got back to our time, he expected us to pay him back with 30 years' interest."  
"Jack, with all fairness, when you borrowed the money you did tell him you would."  
"That's not the point, Daniel."  
And to think, Sturgis mentally observed, that he used to think the people at JAG Headquarters didn't behave professionally.  
Carter and Thor were examining what looked like a huge calculation on one of the walls. Jack followed the path of Sturgis' eyes, and issued him a warning.  
"Don't even try to understand what they're doing. And whatever you do, don't ask Carter to explain it. If you don't try to understand what's going on, you got less to worry about, and that's always a good thing."  
  
AJ sat up. The first thing he saw was a little grey man, watching him with concern. Or what looked like concern. It was hard to tell with those faces.  
"Damn."  
"Admiral?"  
"I was hoping this was all a dream."  
"Regrettably not, Admiral. However, I was able to cure you."  
Their last conversation flashed like lightning through Chegwidden's brain. "You reduced the swelling?"  
"Yes. Are you experiencing any residual pain?"  
"No. No, the pain's gone. Funny, I'd gotten so used to it it's kinda weird not to feel it any more. It's like there was an elephant in the room I never looked directly at, and now it's gone it seems funny not to avoid looking at that part of the room." He had been looking down at his hands, but then he brought his eyes to Freyr's again, smiling ruefully. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"  
"I assume you were using a common human metaphor. You are far easier to understand than Colonel O'Neill."  
The Admiral swallowed nervously. "Can I ask you something?"  
"Of course."  
"My condition. Could it have caused. behavioural changes?"  
"That is most likely. The swelling of your brain was similar to the condition known as meningitis. It was merely a different part of the brain that was affected, putting stress on different parts of your skull and brain. It is probable that the region of your brain which causes anger and irrationality was over-stimulated as a result of these pressures. This would cause short, snappish behaviour in those otherwise rational, and may for someone in a command position such as yourself have resulted in an unusually antagonistic and demanding command attitude, and a tendency to make harsher decisions than would otherwise be your habit."  
Relief and dread washed over AJ in equal amounts. Relief that he was not completely accountable for his behaviour over the last year and a half, particularly his treatment of Rabb. Dread that his people would be unable to forgive him for what he had done, for the pain he had caused, for nearly causing the deaths of both Harm and Mac.  
"Can I go back to the others now?"  
"That would be advisable. They are considering what course of action to take regarding Captain Rabb, and may well value your imput as an experienced and wise commander of men."  
He snorted. "Or they'll just resent the way I've been acting recently."  
"Over the millennia, my race has spent a great deal of time observing yours. Your kind are remarkably forgiving, especially when compared to many other races in this galaxy."  
"That's comforting." Freyr was not particularly familiar with the nuances of human vocal expressions, or he might have described the Admiral's voice at that moment as "wry".  
  
There was some sort of argument in process when AJ rejoined the others, though it lessened in volume when they became aware of his presence.  
"Something going on I should know about, gentlemen? Major?"  
Colonel O'Neill turned around and slammed his head against the wall. His mutterings could just be made out by those standing near him.  
"Damnit. now he's done it. he asked the question. she's gonna answer. damnit."  
"Sir, we've come up with a plan to help Captain Rabb regain complete control of his mind."  
"He doesn't have complete control of his mind?"  
"Yes sir. Several months ago the Captain-"  
"Forget I asked, Major."  
"YES!!!" Everyone turned to look at Jack. "Sorry. Don't mind me. Carter, tell the man the plan."  
"Sir. The Asgard have the technology to send a transporter beam through a tiny hyperspace corridor. They also have the ability to predict solar flares. Now if we aim this beam, in its corridor, at the sun at precisely the right moment in a solar flare, the solar flare will reflect the beam back to Earth, sending whoever is being transported back in time. Thor will be able to calculate the co-ordinates and timing to put the team exactly when and where we want them to be."  
"Back up a minute Major. Why do we want to go back in time?"  
"To save Hammer's father and bring him back with us, sir."  
AJ gave up. "Okay. Go on."  
"Each member of the team will take with them a subspace tracking device, which Thor will be able to track through time. When the appropriate amount of time has lapsed for the people in the past, even if it's only a few seconds for those remaining here, Thor will lock onto their tracking devices and bring them and Lieutenant Rabb back."  
"Why will the passage of time be different for those back in the past?" ~And I'm not even going to think about the fact that I'm unquestioningly accepting the concept of controlled time-travel.~  
"It's complicated, sir." Very occasionally, Sam was able to tell when was not the time to fully explain something to her audience.  
"Okay. So what's the problem?"  
"Sir?"  
"Sounded like there were several different opinions being aired when I first came in."  
"Well sir, Thor can only transport a limited number of people through time at once."  
"How many?"  
"Six, maximum, sir. Which means that if we want to bring back Lieutenant Rabb, only five people can go."  
  
Sturgis broke the silence.  
"Mac has to go." Everyone focussed their attention on him. Jack raised an eyebrow. "She speaks the language. She's the one who translated what the Russian woman said to Harm. And I think, since she followed Harm all the way to Russia on his quest, further than anyone else ever did, that she has a right to be there." There were murmurs of assent, then AJ spoke up.  
"Mac. That leaves four. Myself, Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, and one other."  
It hadn't really occurred to him that anyone would question his right to go. But Frank Cody stepped forward, eyes blazing.  
"What gives you the right to go, sir? Sure, you were a SEAL, but there are four active SEALs standing right here. We were with him through all this shit. Hell, we saw Apollo burrow into his neck. You? You tried to take the Navy away from him, then treated him like dirt when you learned you'd failed. You think you can be a part of this and worm your way back into his good books you can think again, Admiral."  
"Have we met before, Commander?"  
"Yes sir. I was in SEAL Team Two when Douglas Marion died." The memories filtered back into Chegwidden's mind. "I sent Harm into Columbia with you."  
"Yes sir. Must have been a lapse in judgement on your part, sir. Sending a man who's not a team player into action with SEALs. You must have kicked yourself about that afterwards."  
AJ felt himself getting angry, and realised that by no means all of his treatment of Harm could be attributed to his condition. To some extent, he was just getting old and crotchety.  
"What do you suggest?"  
"Colonel MacKenzie, as the Commander said. Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter, because they have experience with time-travel, and the Major understands the math stuff. Commander Turner, as a good friend of Hammer who stood by him when the rest of the people at JAG betrayed and forgot about him. And me, because I'm Hammer's Second and it's my job to go in his place if he can't, and represent SG-6."  
Jack looked at Chegwidden. The memory of how satisfying it had been to deck the guy helped him make up his mind. "I agree with Cody, sir. And we wouldn't want to risk losing the Judge Advocate General in the wilds of 1980s Russia, would we? Daniel, go get Colonel MacKenzie. If Hammer asks, we're gonna be discussing how to deal with the Ashrak loose in DC. You should probably spend some time thinking about that anyway while we're gone.  
"Jack, don't you think we should tell him what's going on? If we don't and it works, he's gonna have the shock of a lifetime. Not to mention suddenly being the same age as his Dad."  
"He's been disappointed about his Dad enough before, Daniel. I'm not gonna run the risk of letting that happen again. I get that it might freak him out to suddenly have a father, but it's something he's wanted all his life. This is the only way to give him the chance at having his Dad back without risking getting his hopes up only to dash them again. If that happened, this whole thing would end up doing more harm than good." Jack had lost his only son. He might not understand the inner workings of the human mind, or how the Gate network worked, but he knew about loss, about having a hole inside you that can only be filled by the only thing that will never, ever fill it again.  
  
Watching the pair of military officers from the doorway, Daniel felt like a voyeur. They weren't being particularly physically intimate, with Harm holding Mac in his arms, her back against his chest, while they both stared out at the stars, but the connection between the two of them was almost tangible. They had obviously talked at some point, and gone a certain way to clearing the air between them. Harm looked more contented that Daniel had ever seen him. He looked like Daniel had always felt when he was with Sha're on Abydos.  
Unwilling to break in on the couple, he cleared his throat. "Guys?"  
Two pairs of eyes, one aquamarine, one brown, turned towards him.  
"We were discussing the whole Ashrak situation, and wanted Colonel MacKenzie's opinion on something. Harm, Freyr said you need rest."  
Mac twisted round to look Harm in the eye, concern on her face. He smiled softly.  
"Go. I'll be fine."  
  
"This is insane."  
"Why do people keep saying that?" Nobody answered that question. Jack hadn't really expected them to.  
"Time travel. It just sounds like something out of Star Trek. The film where they go back in time to save the whales, so the aliens don't destroy the Earth."  
Sturgis looked at Mac with surprise. "I never pegged you for a Star Trek fan, Mac."  
"I've worked with Bud for nearly a decade, Sturgis. You think I could have done that without absorbing a little of that stuff along the way?"  
"Time travel's a bit like the Wizard of Oz, Colonel. You follow the Yellow Brick Road, everything turns out okay and you end up back in Kanzas."  
"What Colonel O'Neill's trying to say, Ma'am, is that we've done this before. We know it works. Well, not this way exactly, but we went back in time and came forward in time and none of us got killed."  
"No thanks to Dr Daniel "Nyet, I'm not a Soviet Spy" Jackson."  
"It's really not as insane as it sounds, Ma'am. And because so few people even knew Lieutenant Rabb was there, we don't have to worry too much about altering the timeline. You just have to tell the Russian girl what to tell you when you and Hammer come looking for the Lieutenant."  
"Okay. If it'll give Harm his father back, I'm in. What's the plan?"  
  
The three men and two women settled down where they had first appeared. A quick scout of the area had shown them the path down to the farmhouse, and they were careful to keep their distance. Revealing themselves too soon could seriously affect things.  
Mac stared upwards. Just visible through the thick canopy of the trees a few stars shone down on them, twinkling mysteriously. The Marine couldn't help but wonder whether the three near-strangers who sat with her had ever visited any of those she could see. Wonder whether Harm had trod the soil of planets it orbit of them, taken there by ships like the magnificent one orbiting the Earth in her own time. For all the tidbits they had revealed about their work, the teams which called themselves SG-1 and SG-6 had never actually explained what it was they did, or where they did it.  
"MRE, Ma'am?"  
Sam Carter's voice jolter Mac from her reverie. Briefly smiling her thanks, she took the foil packet from the Major's outstretched hand.  
"Guess being at JAG means you don't get out in the field much. I've never seen someone smile at the prospect of an MRE before."  
"We get out more than you'd think. Especially with Harm around. He's a walking trouble magnet."  
"Yeah, we noticed that. He never really talks about his time at JAG."  
"You spend much time with him?"  
"Not really. The Teams tend to stick together, we don't mix much. But he helps me out in the lab sometimes. He's good with alien technology." Mac sensed that this was connected to the references to the personality trying to take over Harm, and didn't ask for further explanation.  
Jack walked over.  
"Either of you ladies care to take first watch?"  
"I'll do it." Mac felt suddenly self-conscious. "It's not like I'm gonna get any sleep tonight."  
"Okay. Wake Cody up around midnight."  
  
As the others dropped off to sleep one by one, Mac remained alert, an M16 across her knees. The SEAL and the two Zoomies each carried a small, alien-looking weapon they referred to as a "zat" along with their more mundane weaponry, but had not offered them to Sturgis and her. She was not entirely certain she wanted to know what they did or how they worked.  
The air was cool. A wind blew that would only have had to gain a little force or lose a little heat to be considered biting. The nocturnal wildlife of Siberia could be heard moving around amongst the trees, but nothing ever emerged into Mac's line of vision.  
The others slept quietly. This was not surprising in a submariner and three Special Forces officers, but it contributed to Mac's feeling of being entirely alone in the universe. The stars and the sounds of the night were her only company. It was an atmosphere where you couldn't help but think over your life, even if you can only spare a small part of your awareness from keeping an alert guard.  
Harm's words to her on the ship had forced her to rethink a lot of her actions from the last few years, some of them in their entirety, some of them in how they made her appear to others, especially Harm. And as she sat there thinking, she realised something. Almost everything she had ever done to try to demonstrate to the people around her that she was a Marine, that she could take care of herself, had proved the exact opposite.  
When Dalton had died, she had internalised the pain. She was strong, she was a Marine. So strong that she gave in to alcohol, her greatest weakness.  
When after Harm's return from flying she tried to show him how well she had managed without him, she demonstrated that in a position of authority over a friend, she was not as nice a person as when she was their equal.  
When she tried to show Harm in Australia that she didn't need him, she showed him that she wasn't strong enough to wait for him; she needed someone else to run to, to make her feel worth something.  
When she went out to the Guadalcanal, she didn't demonstrate that she didn't need him; she showed that she couldn't handle talking to him.  
And in Paraguay? She tried to show him that she didn't need him to rescue her. But he did rescue her, and she knew in her heart that she would be dead if it wasn't for him. So by acting like she didn't need him, she showed herself to be not a strong, capable Marine, but an ungrateful little girl who wanted everything to go exactly as she intended all the time. She, trying to show that she was a Marine, left an unconscious man with a head injury alone in a crashed plane in a country where he didn't speak the language so that she could go and get a car to rub in his face the fact that she was getting them out of there. No Marine would ever leave a man behind like that, even if they did leave clues to suggest that they were alive. It was just plain bad sense. Anything could have happened to him while she was gone. And, loath as she was to admit it, anything could have happened to her. And after that, things just went downhill.  
She sighed, and the wind sighed with her. Her internal clock told her it was just after midnight, so she wandered over to wake up Lieutenant Commander Cody before finding a piece of relatively soft ground to roll out her sleeping bag and lie down on.  
  
Morning came, and with it a semblance of warmth. After a breakfast of cold MREs, the five of them gathered their things together and erased most signs of their presence. Then they spread out, each taking up a position beside the path which led to the stream where the Russian soldiers would appear and attempt to rape the Russian girl. They settled down to wait.  
  
Though they were not positioned to see the picnickers, they could hear them clearly. To Sam and the men, the sounds had no meaning, apart from the occasional bout of laughter. But Mac was hearing words.  
Only two people spoke; the girl and her brother. The deeper voice only laughed, sometimes uncertainly. Mac got the impression that while he had picked up a fair amount of Russian since his escape, Harmon Rabb Senior still could not follow a rapid, joking conversation with much ease. No wonder he was simply "Tyete" to the girl. He didn't have the command of the language to really tell who he was. And if he was anything like his son, he wouldn't have told them even if he could. He wouldn't put them in danger like that.  
Gradually, the laughter died away, and soft footfalls could be heard. The girl was coming up the path, making her way towards the stream. Mac saw Sturgis shift uncomfortably in the undergrowth to her right. Ever the preacher's son, Sturgis was fully aware that he shouldn't watch what was about to happen.  
A few minutes passed in relative peace, Sturgis keeping his eyes averted from the pool, Jack and Frank occasionally sneaking quick looks before meeting the amused eyes of Sam Carter. They were all able to see each other, but the casual observer would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary amongst the trees.  
Then they came.  
There were four of them. Bored with the task of encouraging villagers to hand out food, they had headed into the woods to see whether they could scare up something slightly more appetising. They were surprised, though not unappreciative, when their eyes fell on something far, far more appealing than wild game.  
The sounds of the struggle and the splashing of the water quickly drew the two men still at ease further down the path. With a yell of "Nooo!" Harm's father drew forth a handgun and began shooting.  
This was their cue. The three SG Officers leapt to their feet, zatguns at the ready. Blue light was hurled forth by the small, unassuming weapons, and the soldiers fell, stunned. At the same time, Mac and Sturgis hurled themselves at Lieutenant Rabb, pulling him to the ground with them.  
  
Jack O'Neill stared down at the four stunned Russians. They were disoriented, but beginning to return to their senses. One looked up at him, and with a start pulled his weapon into his hands and moved as if to fire it.  
Jack shot the zatnik'tel a second time. It was soon enough. The man fell dead. On either side of him, Sam and Frank were forced to do the same. All four soldiers lay dead. Jack looked at Sam.  
"The brother buried the bodies in an unknown location, right?"  
"Yes sir."  
Jack held up his zat once more, and shot each of the soldiers another time. Their bodies disintergrated.  
Behind them, standing shivering next to her brother, the young Russian woman fainted, her body falling to the floor with a slight thud.  
  
Mac pushed herself up from the ground and dusted off her BDUs. A couple of feet away, Sturgis did the same. Lieutenant Rabb continued to lie on the ground, face up, staring at them. He said nothing.  
The two JAG lawyers turned to see Jack as he walked over to them.  
"He okay?"  
"He looks a little winded, but he wasn't hurt, sir."  
At these words, Harmon Rabb Senior leapt to his feet, his eyes wide.  
"You're Americans?"  
"What gave us away? Was it my hair? I've always been told I have very American hair." Mac stared at O'Neill open-mouthed. It seemed his flair for inappropriate humour was not restricted to relatively ordinary situations.  
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" His voice was now tinged with suspicion."  
"We came here to rescue you." Mac had in the past often had success with the direct approach. Though not, now she came to think of it, with males of the Rabb family.  
He let out a snort of derision. "I was shot down thirteen years ago. The Americans haven't come for me in that time. I'm supposed to believe they would now? How would Americans even know where I am? I've had enough of Russian mind games for one lifetime already."  
"If we're part of a Russian mind game, why did we just save your life? Kill those soldiers?" Sturgis the reasonable was speaking now. "Why not just send those Russians we just killed to capture or shoot you? It would be less bother than finding five people able to pass themselves off as Americans just to recapture one escaped POW."  
"If you're not here to recapture me, you'll let me walk away now. You won't shoot me in the back or try and come after me ever again. Perhaps you really are Americans, here to take me home. But I can't take that risk." He began to walk away. Mac and Sturgis exchanged worried glances, until she had a brainwave.  
"HR squared!"  
He froze, and turned his head. "What did you say?"  
"HR squared. The last time you saw your son, you took him to an amusement park that was going to close down. You carved HR squared onto one of the rollercoaster cars."  
He had turned completely to face her by now, disbelief in his eyes, yet still a touch of mistrust.  
"Your mother's name is Sarah. She lives in Belleville, Pensylvania. Your father was a Navy pilot, like you. He was shot down flying off the USS Hornet in 1942. You bought a Stearman biplane like he earned his Navy wings in, hoping you and Little Harm could restore it together."  
He took a step towards her. "What's my wife's name?"  
"Trish."  
Another step. "What's my kid's birthday?"  
"October 25th."  
He moved forward a few paces to stand just in front of her. Mac looked up into the clear blue eyes, so like his son's. His next words were little more than a whisper, but carried in the still air so that the others standing near could hear.  
"How do you know all this?"  
  
"I." Mac faltered. "I know your son."  
He stared at her. "How do you know him?"  
"We work together."  
Lieutenant Rabb's laughter felt like ice trickling down the back of your neck. "My son is eighteen years old. If you're trying to convince me you're not playing mind games, come up with a story a little better than that."  
"Lieutenant, you wouldn't believe me if I told you the whole truth."  
"Try me. And you can start with your name."  
"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, United States Marines."  
He raised an eyebrow, and his expression became similar to that of his son's just before he tore down a witness on the stand; polite disbelief. "Really. Well, Ma'am, if had Marines looked like you twenty years ago, I would have joined the Corps." There was a touch of amusement in his eyes. "Go on. Colonel. I'm listening."  
She decided to go for broke. "We've come back in time from the year 2004 to save your life and take you back with us."  
That brought Rabb up short. He had no real response to that. He gaped at her like a fish for a moment, before apparently deciding to play along with her, as if he were mollifying a child.  
"Why?"  
"Your son was recently seriously injured."  
"Several times," interjected Jack.  
"He's had a lot of pain in his life. He's emotionally scarred, and it's having a negative effect on his personality." Mac was glad they'd thought to prepare that euphemism in advance. It was telling the truth without taking the story even further beyond the bounds of credibility. "He could be headed for some sort of breakdown. His doctor," okay, an alien doctor, but still a doctor, "pointed out that a great deal of his distress was caused by a small boy's psychological need for his father. Major Carter here," she nodded at Sam,  
"Another Marine?"  
"Air Force, actually," Sam smiled slightly,  
"Is a theoretical astrophysicist. She and another scientist," a little grey one from another planet, "worked out that it would be possible to send a team of five of us back in time to save your life and take you back with us without altering the course of history."  
"Save my life?"  
"Harm and I came here looking for you a few years ago, in the future." That sounded weird, but as it was weird, that couldn't really be helped. "Your young Russian friend, the girl, told us that you had been shot by Russian soldiers whilst saving her from being raped. We just stopped that from happening."  
"You expect me to believe this?"  
"Lieutenant," Jack stepped forward, one hand making a wide sweeping gesture whilst the other held his P90 in place, "You've been stuck in Russia for over a decade. In all that time, have you seen anything that would suggest to you that the Russians have either the imagination or the sense of humour you'd need to come up with a story like this?"  
"No. But you'll forgive me if I find this a little hard to take in."  
"Sure. I didn't believe this was possible at first. But then Carter here tried to explain it to me, and I figured it was easier to just give up and believe her than try and follow all her technobabble."  
"Technobabble?"  
"Lotsa long words said one after the other which make no sense unless you have a PhD."  
Rabb smiled slightly. He was beginning to trust Jack, if only because this was not the usual way the Russians had treated him. Before, if he got away they hauled him back. They only played mind games when they wanted information, though Victor had usually managed to prevent that by telling his superiors that Rabb was proving useful.  
"So, are you a Jarhead or a Zoomie?"  
"I'm Air Force. But these two gentlemen are both Squids, like you."  
"Why'd they send such a variety?"  
"This was kinda a spur of the moment operation. We're just some of the people who were there when the idea came up."  
"So who are you all?"  
"Colonel MacKenzie, like she said, works with your son. Or used to, anyway. Carter and I are part of a team operating out of the same base as him. Lieutenant Commander Cody here is Hammer's 2IC, and Commander Turner went to the Academy with him, and also used to work with him. The only thing we've all got in common is that Harm's saved all our lives. We figured we owe it to him to try and save his soul."  
Rabb was silent. This whole situation was too ridiculous to be a fabrication.  
"Lieutenant?" It was Commander Turner.  
"Sir?" Now he knew their ranks, and was inclined to believe that they were genuine ones, he found himself automatically slipping back into military protocol.  
"What've you got to lose by believing us?"  
"Nothing much, I guess."  
"And what have you got to gain if we're telling the truth?"  
"My son."  
"Sounds like a no-brainer to me, Lieutenant."  
"Guess so, sir." He noticed that Turner looked uncomfortable. "What?"  
"You're my best friend's father. If you hadn't been shot down, you'd be an Admiral by now. It just doesn't feel right for you to call me sir, especially when you're not in uniform."  
"Uh, sirs? We don't want to hand around here longer than we have to. I'd suggest Colonel MacKenzie briefs the Russians on what their story should be, then I change the frequency on our tracking devices so Thor can get us out of here." Rather than decide on a specific amount of time to remain in the past, they had opted to send a signal to Thor when they were ready to leave, to allow for any eventualities that might make it inconvenient to leave at any particular time."  
Jack nodded. "Okay. Colonel, get to it. Carter, rustle up a tracking device for the Lieutenant." He looked Rabb in the eye. "You're going home."  
"Yeah. I guess I am." Turner's discomfort at being addressed as "sir" had finally resolved Harm Senior to go along with them. A Russian agent would have been too well-trained to show any discomfort they might feel at their deception. And there was something about the Commander that demanded both trust and respect.  
Mac returned a few minutes later after explaining to the young Russian man what story they should tell anyone who came looking for Harm in the future. His sister was still unconscious, but she knew he would pass on the story, and there was no way she was going to tell him that he would die in a few years' time and not be able to tell the story himself.  
Sam handed Lieutenant Rabb a tracking device, and adjusted the frequencies on all of them. They had less than a minute to wait before the now-familiar white light engulfed them, and the next thing they knew they were back on the Carter, Admiral Chegwidden and the remaining members of SG- 1 and SG-6 waiting for them expectantly.  
  
If Lieutenant Harmon Rabb Senior had honestly believed he was awake, he would probably have had a heart attack. His acceptance of the possibility that there was a chance that it was maybe almost feasible that his rescuers had been speaking the truth had by no means prepared him for the reality of it. He'd been at sea when Star Trek came into the world. He'd been in Russia when Star Wars was released. He hadn't even existed for shows like Red Dwarf, Babylon Five and Wormhole X-Treme. The possibility of time-travel, and the possible ways it could work, were not something he'd ever had occasion to think about. The fact that he had obviously moved through space as well as time did nothing to ease his handling of the situation.  
A lesser man would have gone ahead and had the heart attack, even if he wasn't certain it wasn't all some elaborate hoax or a figment of a deranged imagination on his part. Most men would at least have had the grace to pass out from shock.  
But Harmon Rabb Senior shared many qualities with his son. They had, after all, had similar formative years. Both grew up without a father, though admittedly the elder of the two had at least known for certain what had happened to his. They had both had to appear strong from a young age, to the extent that they were exceptionally experienced at neither admitting to, nor showing inadvertently, weakness in the presence of others.  
So he just stood, and let all his potentially overwhelming emotions wash over him, unheeded by his conscious mind.  
  
Harm could tell the instant Mac and the others returned to the ship. Part of him wanted to believe that he had sensed Sam's presence as a former host, but a greater part was prepared to admit, even happy to admit, that he was acutely aware of Mac's renewed proximity. After all, he had not been entirely joking when he had told Mac, so long ago, that he always knew where she was. It was like there was a gravitational pull between them that tried to tug his heart out of his chest whenever she was near.  
They had been gone for about half an hour. In that time Ray and Zip, the two most junior members of his team, had gone down to his quarters in the SGC to pick him up a clean uniform. He had changed into it gratefully. There's just something not quite right about wearing clothes soaked with a pint or so of your own blood when there isn't a single open wound on your body.  
On sensing their return, Harm made his way up to the bridge of the Carter. It felt right to go there, and it was the place Thor was most likely to have brought them back to. He heard faint sounds as he approached, and concluded that he had been correct in his assumption.  
All noise ceased as he rounded the corner into the area where everyone else was gathered. The silence seemed strained; heavy. It took him a moment to realise why. That moment was spent running his eyes around everyone in the room, curious to see whether they had picked up any help from the Pentagon in their search for the Ashrak.  
They had picked someone up all right. But it sure as hell wasn't someone from the Pentagon.  
As Harm stared into a pair of blue-green eyes identical to his own, he felt the bottom drop out of his world.  
Again.  
  
~So, you're Harmon Rabb, are you? Who's that, then?~  
~Shut up.~  
~Manners, manners, Harmon Rabb.~  
~SHUT UP!~  
~A touchy subject, I presume. But of course. That man is dead. It is not to be wondered at. These friends of yours try to mock you, as Palmer did.~  
~You don't know anything about that.~  
~Please. You know better than to think that.~  
~It has to be him. It can't not be him.~  
~Really? You've never seen a man who looks like your dead father before? Tell me, Human, have you ever looked in a mirror?~  
~It's him. I can feel it.~  
~They mock you, Tau'ri. As the lawyers have mocked you in the past. That cannot be your father. Your father died unknown, unmourned, more than twenty years ago.~  
~You yourself said death is not always the end.~  
~Do your kind have sarcophagi, Tau'ri? Can even a sarcophagus bring back a man that long dead? Admit it. They are mocking you. There is no other possibility.~  
~I know my own father, snake. It's him.~  
~You claim to know a man you haven't seen in thirty-five years?~  
~Blood calls to blood. He's my family. I know it.~  
~But what if you're wrong? What if you let yourself believe, but you are wrong? What manner of fool would you be then, Harmon Rabb?~  
Harm mentally gritted his teeth. ~He's my father. My Dad. He is.~  
~If you truly believe that, why are you standing here arguing with yourself? If you have no doubts, why do you not embrace your kinsman? Why do you go so far as to acknowledge my presence, which at all other times you seek to deny, even to yourself? There is no certainty in you, Human. Only a terrified hope, and the longing of a small boy. You are pathetic.~  
~If I'm pathetic, what does that make you?~  
  
Expressions flitted over Harm's face like the shadows of clouds blown by the wind cross fields in early summer. Mac watched them, fear in her heart. There was a struggle of epic proportions going on inside Harm, and she could only hope that the outcome was positive.  
  
Harm Senior stared at his son, forgetting the presence of all the others. He saw the conflict in his features, and knew it for what it was. His son had been without a father too long for him to be able to accept his return without some doubts.  
He had left behind a boy of six, hadn't seen him since he was five. Now a man stood before him; a Naval officer. He felt a surge of pride at the sight of the gold wings on his son's chest. His boy was an aviator, the third in his family. He had followed in his footsteps, as he had always hoped he would.  
The SEAL Trident confused him, and spoke of a mixed and interesting career. So did the ribbons that adorned his chest; the DFCs showing him to be a skilled pilot, the Bronze Stars showing that he could hold his own on the ground. The other medals offered no hints as to the reasons they had been awarded.  
His eye kept straying back to one ribbon. Pale blue, with five white stars on it. What in God's name had he done to earn that? What sort of hero was his son?  
Which led to other thoughts. Aside from the uniform, who was this man? O'Neill had said he had been injured a lot recently, yet he still stood tall, with a presence that let his current physical condition remain incidental, even a monument, to his other strengths.  
  
"Dad?"  
It was a small boy who spoke. A small boy who had been told Daddy wasn't coming back, and had begun to believe it.  
"It's me, son."  
"How.?" Lieutenant Rabb's heart went out to his son. Despite being all of six foot four, a decorated Naval Aviator, a SEAL and a Captain, at that moment he could easily have passed for a five year old.  
"You'd have to ask these people."  
Harm spared a brief glance for Jack. "Time travel?"  
Jack nodded. He could imagine what Harm was going through. He could only imagine what would happen if. But it couldn't happen. The situation was completely different. He could never have his father-son reunion. God, Charlie.  
"I dreamed of this moment for so many years." Harm paused to swallow the lump rising in his throat. "I guess I never thought past actually getting you back." He gave a wan smile. "I have absolutely no idea what to do now."  
"C'mere, son." Harm Sr held out his hands.  
In an instant, Harm was in his father's arms for the first time in three and a half decades. As he stood with his head buried in his father's shoulder, the floodgates opened. Tears he didn't even know he had been holding back flowed freely down his face, unheeded and unchecked. His whole frame was wracked with sobs as the loss which had determined the course of his entire life was finally remedied.  
Harm Sr simply held his son, his eyes glistening. This was really happening. This was really his son he held in his arms, a man grown now but still his little boy.  
  
Mac felt the tears prick the backs of her eyes at the sight before her. The two men looked more like identical twin brothers than father and son, but the interplay between them showed their relationship for exactly what it was; proud father and loving son, years apart but still closer than many who had not had to suffer such a separation.  
Harm finally had his father back, and she had been instrumental in bringing that about. The satisfaction she felt at that realisation was greater than any she had ever experienced before; it was better than putting a rapist away, or getting an innocent man acquitted. She had helped her best friend achieve his heart's desire.  
  
Janet, on entering the room, watched the two men for a moment before clearing her throat, attracting everyone's attention.  
"I just got a message from General Hammond. We need to get down to DC right now."  
  
"What's up?" Jack spoke as Harm stepped back from his father, his hand going to his face to wipe away the tear-tracks before he turned to look at the new arrival.  
"The General got a call from the Pentagon. Paul Davies was just stabbed in the stomach. They're not letting anyone out of the building; whoever did it must still be in there."  
"The Ashrak?"  
"That would make sense, sir."  
"Rabb, this guy's after you. How'd you suggest we do this?"  
"We go down there, we get into the Pentagon and split up into three groups. Teal'c's in one, Sam's in another and I take the third. Each team makes its way through the building, making sure not to miss anyone. If the Ashrak's there, one of the three of us will feel it."  
"We're just gonna appear in the middle of the Pentagon?"  
"Probably not a good idea. Thor can put us down in my apartment; we conceal our weapons and get the Metro to the Pentagon and split up once we're inside."  
"Harm, this guy's after you, not the rest of us. You sure you should go down there?"  
Harm nodded. "He wants me alive. And I think," he glanced at his father, a wicked gleam in his eye, "We might have an advantage the snake isn't expecting."  
  
It was a long time since that many people had been gathered together in Harm's apartment, yet it didn't seem in any way crowded. Whilst the others discussed how exactly to go about finding the Ashrak, Harm led his father up the stairs into his bedroom, after a brief phone conversation.  
"You can't go to the Pentagon looking like that, Dad." The two men had forced their personal feelings aside, aware that further words between them would have to wait until the matter at hand was dealt with, even though Harm Sr wasn't exactly sure what the matter at hand actually was.  
"You'll find a razor in the bathroom," he pointed, "So you can get rid of that moustache. The more you look like me, the better. I'll have a uniform ready for you when you're done. I've spoken to the CNO. Can't have one of me a Lieutenant and one of me a Captain, it would ruin the effect. Congratulations, Acting Captain Rabb." He grinned.  
Harm Sr was beginning to realise how his son had picked up all those medals.  
  
When he came out of the bathroom, his upper lip feeling strangely naked, he quickly dressed in the uniform laid out on the bed. He glanced at himself in the mirror.  
His ribbons were all in place, almost exactly the same as they had been the last time he put on a Navy uniform, with one or two additions he assumed were owing to him.  
He fingered the wings. It felt so. so right. to be wearing gold wings again.  
"They're yours."  
His son was leaning against the glass blocks that divided the room from the rest of the apartment. "I met Jenny Lake at the Vietnam Memorial Wall a few years back. She gave them to me. I left them at the Wall to start with, but I didn't want them to just vanish, so in the end I brought them home with me. It seemed like the right thing to do."  
"Thanks." The two men stared at each other for a few moments more, before Harm Jr shook himself out of the trance he had fallen into.  
"We should get going. You ready?"  
"As ready as I'll ever be."  
Harm grinned again. "Then let's blow this joint."  
  
Had the Pentagon not been a military installation, it would have been in an uproar. As it was, the air hummed with adrenaline, and no-one tried to coax information out of the small number of determined-looking people who appeared to know what was going on.  
SG-6, despite strongly-worded protests on their part, accompanied Teal'c. The rest of SG-1, Janet and Admiral Chegwidden went with Sam as their Goa'uld detector. That left Harm, Sturgis, Mac and Harm Sr as the third team.  
They made their way into Navy territory. Harm had a strong feeling that that was where the elusive snake was to be found. The Ashrak had hidden in a Marine before, and almost definitely knew that Harm was a Naval officer. Hiding in another Naval officer would therefore be the logical thing for the snake to do, as it would increase its chances of coming into contact with Harm.  
They made no secret of their presence. The entire outside of the building was being watched. There was no way the snake could get out unnoticed, and so they had little to fear from it knowing they were coming. Especially as it could probably already feel Harm.  
Several pairs of eyes widened at the sight of two nearly identical Captains, but fewer than one might imagine given both Harm's notoriety in the Navy and his habit of dominating even civilian headlines. Working at the Pentagon made people practised in not asking too many questions, even in the safety of their own minds.  
"Harm? What do you have to do with all this?"  
Harm had just emerged from an office when he heard the familiar voice coming from down the corridor to his left. His father was behind him; Mac and Sturgis were already in the corridor.  
"Admiral! I thought you'd retired, sir." ~Oh shit.~  
"I was recalled again. Secnav needed another aviator advisor for some reason, and my name came up. What're you doing here? I heard you'd left JAG, but I know Colonel MacKenzie and Commander Turner haven't."  
"I'm TAD to JAG Headquarters for a while, sir. Arm injury means I'm on limited duty for another month or so, and I guess they figured JAG was the best place for me until I could get back to work."  
  
Harm Sr was certain he should recognise the voice of the man who had just addressed his son, but he was more interested in the confirmation he had just received of his suspicions, based on Commander Turner's uniform and the presence of a JAG two-star amongst his son's friends, that his son had served at JAG. What he wouldn't give to get his hands on his son's service record. He had a suspicion it would prove interesting reading.  
He stepped out into the corridor, closing the office door behind him, and immediately the Admiral to whom Harm Jr was speaking stopped mid- sentence to stare at him.  
"Hammer?! Harm, tell me that's not who I think it is. That's impossible!"  
He looked more closely at the man, and at once recognised certain things about his face, his voice, his stance.  
"Tong?"  
  
Harm's expression had never been more reminiscent of a deer caught in the headlights as he moved his eyes between the two men as if a spectator at a high-level tennis match. And neither Mac nor Sturgis could think of a thing to say that might help him out. The moment dragged on for what felt like hours, until Harm took a deep breath.  
"Admiral, I know this is a shock for you, but I can explain it. Later. We're kinda busy right now."  
"Harm, this isn't a shock, this is. I don't know what it is, but shock sure as hell doesn't describe it."  
"Imagine how I feel, sir. Sir I swear I'll explain this to you, just not right now. If you come with us, but keep out of the way behind Colonel MacKenzie, we can talk as soon as I've done what I came here to do."  
Before Boone could answer, Harm strode past him, headed for the next office along. The Admiral gave his old wingman another long stare, before doing as Harm had suggested and falling in behind Mac, every so often giving his head a violent shake and looking back at Harm Sr, as though unwilling to believe his eyes.  
  
A few offices later, Harm froze as he put his hand to the doorknob. He turned to look at Sturgis.  
"Radio the others. He's here."  
He pushed the door open.  
There was only one man in the office. He stood with his back to the door, staring out of the window. All Harm could really tell about him was that he was a civilian with dark hair. Harm leaned against the doorframe and spoke.  
"There's nowhere to run. Give yourself up and we may let you off this planet alive."  
Out in the corridor, Boone heard those words. He looked at Mac for confirmation, receiving only a single nod from her. His eyes widened, but he remained silent.  
The Goa'uld gave a snort of contempt, not turning from his position at the window. His voice, when he spoke, was deep and distorted; the symbiote was openly admitting who he was.  
"Tau'ri arrogance never ceases to amaze me. I have walked unseen on this planet for generations. Cut off from the System Lords until recently, I have done as I see fit to promote the interests of the Goa'uld on this planet, and no-one has ever attempted to stop me. What makes you think that you can succeed where none before you have even tried?"  
"I know what you are. I know how to deal with you. There's no way out of this building without my say so, and if you move to another body I'll know. Killing me won't help you; it won't get you your reward, and it won't get you out of here. I'm not the only one who can feel the presence of a Goa'uld."  
"You think your soldiers with their primitive weapons can contain me? You think I could not kill every single person in this building and still walk out alive?"  
"I think trying would be stupid. We've killed Goa'uld before. We've killed System Lords on their own turf, surrounded by Jaffa. You think an Ashrak is gonna cause us problems?"  
"A System Lord is an easy target. They do not hide in the shadows, as my kind do. A king is easier to dispose of than his assassins. That much should be obvious even to you, Tau'ri. An Ashrak once infiltrated your most secure base and nearly killed one of your people."  
"That was before we had people who can tell when there's a snake nearby. There are three of us in this building, and we have other ways to detect you. Surrendering yourself is the only way to get out of here alive."  
"That is what you think." The Ashrak had turned and leapt over the desk almost before Harm could blink, throwing himself at the man who had presumed to kill the Son of Zeus. Harm had only just enough time to duck out of his way and let him fly out into the corridor, where he slammed against the far wall.  
Harm followed him out, pulling off his jacket and throwing it at Mac. Harm Sr did the same, handing his jacket to Sturgis. The two well-nigh identical Naval Captains together moved to stand over the fallen Ashrak, continually swapping places so that the Goa'uld was unable to tell which one was the former host. Harm Sr was not really sure what that meant, but did it all the same.  
  
The Ashrak remained on his front, but moved his head to the side slightly to speak, his voice still distorted, one eye staring up at the two men.  
"What trick is this, Tau'ri?"  
"No trick, snake." Both Harmon Rabbs spoke at once, and Mac recalled with inner amusement the comment she had once made to Harm.  
'One Harmon Rabb in my life is enough.'  
She had probably been right about that in some ways. But not in all. If there being two Harmon Rabbs meant Harm had his father back, she was all in favour of it.  
The Goa'uld pulled himself to his feet, his hand going inside his jacket.  
He turned. A mind-control device had been slipped over his fingers. Harm raised a zat gun towards him, then stopped, caught entirely off-guard.  
The Ashrak smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "If you kill me, you kill the host, Harmon Rabb."  
And for a moment, just for a moment, the Goa'uld relinquished control of the host.  
Harm stared at the other man; the man who had played the greatest part in bringing him to this point in time and space.  
And for one tiny fraction of a second, Clayton Webb was able to stare back.  
  
Then the Goa'uld reclaimed control of his body, with a sinister flare of yellow light. Harm continued to hold out the zat, but couldn't bring himself to fire even a single, stunning shot. Clayton Webb's mouth twisted into a cruel smirk, not unlike the one the spook used when simply being supercilious or trying to get Harm riled up about something.  
"You will not shoot this host, human?"  
"I dunno. I don't like him very much. He has a habit of almost getting me killed."  
"Yet you have shown friendship towards him in the past."  
"That was before he almost got the woman I love killed and then manipulated her into feeling that I was the bad guy and he was the poor martyr who underwent torture to save her. I have no problem with causing that guy pain."  
The Goa'uld seemed slightly disconcerted by this pronouncement, but it did not take him long to recover.  
"And if I told you that this human was under my control when those events occurred?"  
"You'd be lying. You've been moving from host to host. Up until two weeks ago you were in a Marine Corporal."  
"There are other ways to control your kind, Captain Rabb. This device you see in my hand. Few can release their full potential. System Lords consider them beneath their notice. But they can control the human mind. It is a fragile thing, the human brain. A few suggestions here and there, and one can entirely alter a person's behaviour, even their thoughts if the user is skilled."  
"You were controlling Webb even before you took him as host?" That actually made sense, but Harm still wanted it explained.  
"But of course. A State Department employee, and an important man in the CIA. Or he was. For the most part, I have merely observed his actions over the years and extracted information from him when necessary. However, his demotion after the Angel Shark irritated me. I had not anticipated it. It was necessary to punish him. I continued to monitor him, awaiting a suitable opportunity. Sadiq provided me with one. I encouraged him to think of Colonel MacKenzie here. I knew he had come to greatly admire her over the years of your acquaintance, so there was little for me to do. I merely. lowered his inhibitions.  
"The plan worked better even than I had hoped. He arranged her involvement in the mission so that he could have her close. Had she died, as I believed was probable, given the foolhardy nature of his plan and his lack of proper contingencies, he would have forever had to deal with the guilt at being the cause of her death. As it was, he took torture for her, but had to watch another man save her. In his vulnerable state, he confessed to her that he needed her, still as a result of his lowered inhibitions. Then he had to suffer being parted from her. He afterwards had to allow you to complete the mission with her, preventing him from becoming the hero he had hoped to be in her eyes. And last of all, he had to live with the knowledge that despite confessing his feelings to her, she did not return them, and had no intention of entering into a relationship with him. He managed to turn her against you, but that was a small triumph, as he did not win her either."  
"You're telling me Webb was just a pawn in your operation?"  
"Oh no. Clayton Webb is far from an innocent victim." The Ashrak was not as smart as he thought he was. He had just succeeded in garnering a little sympathy for his host, but the Bad Guy Syndrome which made him have to demonstrate his cleverness and disillusion his nemesis was about to render moot everything he had just said. "He allowed me to get close to him, allowed me to learn who he was and what he did, long before I ever had to use the device on him. He is an ambitious man, Mr Webb. He was far from completely aware of what I did to him, but some information he would give me willingly. With my contacts, I was able to make life easier for him in the Agency. Did you never wonder, Harmon Rabb, why, with all those botched operations, all the times he called in JAG officers and then nearly got them killed, he was still in a high- powered position within the Company and the State Department? And as for Sarah! He always wanted to take her from you. All it needed for him to make the attempt in Paraguay was a few shoves in the right direction; a few suggestions planted in his mind. His actions in Paraguay were true to his inner character, just not to the persona he always projected to you. Remember that it was always in his best interests to avoid completely alienating you. As both a lawyer and a pilot, you were uniquely qualified to help him on many occasions. To try and steal from you the woman you loved, even if you never really had her, could only have hindered his ambitions."  
  
Mac was overcome with horror at what she heard. Perhaps part of her had realised in and after Paraguay that Webb had been manipulating her, but to hear it all laid out like that made her feel like a complete and utter idiot. She had let Webb get close to her, thinking they had a special bond because of what they had been through, without thinking about the fact that she and Harm had been through far rougher situations together. She had treated Harm badly because he seemed to be playing the hero, but the truth of the matter was that he was the hero. He had saved her, whatever her Marine pride tried to tell her. But Webb was still able to successfully drive a wedge between them. Part of her conduct in Paraguay, as she knew full well, had been her trying to prove to Harm that she was a Marine and could take care of herself, but part had been due to the way Clay had manipulated her without her even realising.  
But there was something else gnawing at her mind, something someone had just said, that prevented her from dwelling too much on her own stupidity. There would be time enough for that later. What was it? What were those words which had caused her heart to lurch, just before the Goa'uld had gloated over his control of Clay?  
"The woman I love."  
He had said the words. He had said the words, and he had been talking about her. The words she had waited so long to hear, while she had selfishly refused to be the one to say them first. Words which she should long ago have realised were unnecessary: Harm had shown her a thousand times how he felt about her, and actions speak louder than words.  
  
Harm Sr was casting a speculative look in Mac's direction, having easily worked out who Harm had been referring to even before the other man spoke her name.  
She was blushing, and seemed to have had some sort of epiphany.  
There was a story there. Somewhere.  
  
Mac fingered the zat gun she had been given. Some sixth sense was warning her that the thing in Webb's body was up to something.  
  
Harm continued to stand motionless, his zat still pointed at Webb's chest. A nagging voice told him that he and his father should have continued to move around, continued to confuse the Goa'uld, but he recognised that it was too late now. His reaction to seeing Webb's face had given him away, and any fool could tell that the other Harmon Rabb did not have a very firm grasp of what was going on. They had confused the Goa'uld for an instant. It had been enough to prevent the snake from taking the upper hand. He had to hope that nothing more was needed.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Webb's hand move, still bearing the mind-control device. Before he could shoot, the hand was moving towards him, a look of contempt on Webb's face, if it could be called that any more.  
A flash of blue light came from somewhere to his right and the Goa'uld faltered for a second. But then it came on, its hand moving to come in front of his face, a terrible gleam in Clayton Webb's eyes.  
~Can't shoot him, can you, Harmon Rabb? You may despise the man, but your ridiculous sense of honour won't let you kill him when he's not in control of his own body. Your self-righteousness is going to get you killed.~  
~Well, at least I'll take you with me.~  
He braced himself for the feeling of the device trying to take control of his thoughts.  
It never came. What came instead was another flash of blue light.  
Forcing Apollo completely out of his thoughts, he turned to look at Mac. There could be no doubt that she knew what she had done. When Jack had given her the zat, he had specifically told her that while one shot stunned, two shots would kill any living man.  
A single tear crept out of the outer corner of her left eye and trickled down her cheek.  
She made no move to wipe it away.  
  
The other two groups chose this moment to arrive, one from each direction. It took Jack only a second to work out what had happened, and to start issuing orders to SG-1 and SG-6.  
Harm and Mac stood motionless, allowing the activity to carry on around them without taking any part in it themselves, neither entirely aware of what was going on anyway. When Clay's body was picked up and placed onto a stretcher which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, Mac made her first visible movement for several minutes, walking over to bury her head in Harm's chest, letting his jacket fall to the floor.  
Completely unconcerned by the fact that they were in uniform, ~Well okay so I'm technically out of uniform, but let's not split hairs here,~ Harm wrapped his arms around her, eyes still focussed on the spot where Webb had falled to the ground, the blue energy dissipating around his already dead form.  
He felt Mac's tears begin to soak his shirt, and raised his right hand to hold the back of her head, wordlessly encouraging her to let it all out. He was surprised she was allowing herself to cry so soon after the event, and in front of so many people, but he would not do anything to stop it. It was quite probably the most healthy thing she could do in the circumstances.  
"I killed him, Harm. Oh God, I killed him. I had to. He was going to kill you, but oh God, I killed him."  
"Sssh, Sarah," Her given name fell from his lips without his even realising, "You had no choice."  
"I killed him." Her voice was choking with sobs. "We don't know whether that. thing. was telling the truth about Webb. He could have been innocent in this, completely controlled by that thing."  
Harm pulled away from her slightly and looked down into her eyes.  
"Mac, if the snake had been in complete control the whole time, he'd have gloated about it. But if I'm wrong, if Webb truly was a victim in all of this, you did him a favour. Take it from someone who knows, Mac. I'd rather die than live with one of those things inside me." He pulled her back tightly into his embrace. "You did the right thing, Mac. The only thing you could have done."  
He felt her nod against his chest, but the tears continued to fall unabated.  
  
Jack stepped forward, unwilling to interrupt them but aware that it had to be done.  
"Rabb, we can finish up here. Chegwidden just needs a short written statement from each of you, then you can take her home. Take your Dad and Admiral Boone with you. You're probably gonna have some explaining to do. Cody can call you later and bring you up to speed."  
Harm nodded, gently pulling away from Mac.  
"C'mon, Marine, just a couple of things to sort out then we can get out of here." He sighed, looking over at Admiral Boone. "Any suggestions on what I should tell him, Jack?"  
"Tell him the truth. Turns out he's cleared. No-one's told him yet, but he's gonna be advising the Joint Chiefs on the Prometheus' new sister- ship. The Air Force doesn't use aircraft carriers, so we're asking the Navy for help on how to run one."  
Harm let out a slightly forced laugh. "The coincidences around here are getting kinda creepy."  
  
To prevent them from having to get the Metro back to Harm's place, a car was provided for them. None of the four spoke the whole journey. Mac spent it leaning against Harm's side, drawing strength from his presence. Harm spent it staring down at Mac. Boone spent it watching his old wingman, looking hard for any signs that he might have been deceived as to his identity.  
Harm Sr spent the journey watching his son and the woman beside him. Forty years ago, that had been him and Trish. Not the situation, but the way they seemed to fit together, the way they seemed to be a single entity divided between two bodies. The two of them seemed to have hurt each other in the past, possibly quite a lot, but even a casual glance would have been enough to confirm that there was a bond between them which transcended such petty things as separation and heartbreak.  
The car drew up in front of Harm's building, and the four of them climbed out. The car drove away, and they were left standing in the road, a slightly uncomfortable silence hanging over them like a thick blanket.  
Harm led the way into the building and up to his apartment. Mac settled down on his armchair, and after a moment the two older men sat down at either end of his couch.  
"Can I get anyone something to drink?"  
All three gave a start at the sudden sound of Harm's question. Mac looked up at him, her face still showing the evidence of her tears. "Water, please." Harm nodded, then turned to the other two. They both spoke at the same time.  
"Bourbon, if you have any." They looked across at each other and smiled, nervously.  
  
Harm moved around the kitched, getting water for Mac, coffee for himself and bourbon for the old friends. When he had passed the drinks out, Mac rose from the armchair, allowing him to settle in before curling up on his lap. They had never been close like this before, but neither gave any conscious thought to their position or their new-found casual intimacy.  
Harm took a long sip of coffee, then placed his mug on the floor beside him, Mac's presence on his lap making it impossible for him to reach the coffee table.  
"This would be where I start explaining, wouldn't it?"  
  
On no other occasion in his life had Harm been able to speak for so long uninterrupted. Beginning with a brief explanation of what happened in Russia and the circumstances surrounding his resignation from JAG, for his father's benefit, he had then launched into an account of almost everything that had happened to him from the moment he looked up to see Jack O'Neill standing in front of him while he sat in the very position his father now occupied. He never went into too much detail, being uncomfortable describing his own deeds to others, nor did he explain any of his medals other than his Purple Hearts, but the tale still took a while in the telling.  
He supposed he should get into the habit of talking like this. At some point, he was going to have to tell his father his life story.  
When he finished his account with an explanation of exactly what they had seen at the Pentagon, Boone turned to Mac to fill him in on the one thing Harm had been unable to describe; the rescue of Harm Sr, and the reasoning behind it. He watched Harm carefully whilst Mac spoke, interested in seeing what his reaction to the tale would be.  
  
As Harm listened to Mac speak, he felt tears fill his eyes yet again. His men and his friends had gone to all that trouble to get him his father back; had known him well enough to realise that to do so would mean more to him than almost anything else. And Mac had gone. The woman who had gone with him further than anyone else had taken one more step, without him, and had achieved what he had spent his life trying to accomplish. Despite all that had passed between them over the years, and especially what had happened in Paraguay, she had still been the one person who could get him his father back, and she had done so.  
Despite the bitterness he had felt towards her, and still felt to some extent, he had never fallen out of love with her, and never thought it would be possible to fall more in love with her. Turns out he was wrong.  
  
Sensing that Harm and Mac could use some time alone, Boone struck up a conversation with his old wingman. He was still in a state of shock, but rapidly realising that this was actually happening, and that he wasn't going insane, he resolved to act as though Harm Sr's homecoming was no more unusual than that of any former POW. And as they spoke of old times, both men noticing out of the corners of their eyes Harm pick Mac up and carry her up the stairs to the bedroom area without any apparent sexual intent but rather a desire to be isolated with her, they both relaxed. Then the topic of their conversation turned towards slightly more recent events.  
"How did my kid end up a JAG with wings and a Trident?"  
"He started out an aviator. Flew Tomcats. Then he had a rampstrike, killed his RIO. It was a dark night, hell of a storm, but he was good. A lot of people didn't believe it to start with. Docs said he was nightblind. He was absolved of guilt, but they pulled his wings. Went to law school, and didn't go up in a Tomcat again for five years. When he did, it was in my back seat; he was on my carrier as part of an investigation. I took some flack, ended up unconscious. He landed that bird in the dark from the back seat. He refused to eject, knowing it would kill me. The pilots on the Seahawk changed their opinion of him then. One of them, the brother of the RIO who died, pinned Harm's wings back on him just as he was about to leave on the COD. A few years later, it turned out he didn't have nightblindness, only retinal scarring. He got it fixed and went back to flight status. He proved himself in the air again, but it was a career dead end. He went back to JAG, and stayed there until he quit to save Colonel MacKenzie in Paraguay. He must've got the Trident since then, from those SEALs he works with now."  
"Is he as good a pilot as the two DFCs suggest?"  
"He's better. His first Silver Star was for taking out a torpedo- launched cruise missile with a dirty nuclear warhead. The guy flying with him couldn't shoot it down before it reached the Seahawk carrier group, so Harm flew in front of it so it would lock on him as a target, then flew away from the group until the missile got out of range and then ran out of fuel. He's damn lucky the thing didn't explode on hitting the water. And his second DFC was for pushing another Tomcat over a mountain and out to feet-wet with the other plane's tail-hook. You should be proud of him, Hammer."  
"What was his first DFC for?"  
"The night he saved my life from the back seat."  
  
Mac lay in Harm's arms, staring at the ceiling. Neither had spoken for a while, content to be close to each other.  
"Did you mean it?" Harm was jolted from his reverie by Mac's question. He searched his recent memory for anything he might have said that needed explaining, and beyond the incredibly obvious, ie the whole parasitical aliens thing, nothing sprang to mind.  
"Mean what?"  
"You said. you said I was the woman you love." Her voice was small, and she spoke quickly, as if fearing that she had misread the situation. Harm put his finger to her chin and moved her head round so that she was looking into his eyes.  
"I meant it."  
She gave a small, relieved smile, then sighed. "So what happens now?"  
  
"Now I think you've got something to say to me." There was a smile in his voice as well as on his face.  
She smiled back at him. "Really? Hmm, I wonder what that could be." she pretended to think for a moment. "Your dad is hot?"  
"Not quite, Marine." He smothered a grin.  
"Oh. In that case I might have to think about it for a bit."  
He raised an eyebrow.  
"The suspense is killing me."  
"Okay then. I love you, Harm."  
He smiled, and moved his face to hers. Their lips an inch apart, eyes boring holes in each other's skulls, he paused.  
"That's good to know, Colonel."  
And with that, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her.  
  
The kiss went on for quite some time, and both participants enjoyed it. When they broke apart, both had to fight to regain control of their breathing. Mac was the first to succeed.  
"I take it you've been working on controlling that anger you feel towards me."  
Harm rolled over onto his back, and stared at the ceiling. "It just doesn't seem to matter any more. Nothing really does except the fact that you're with me. I guess I never really realised how big a hole Dad's disappearance had left in my heart. Now it's gone, it's like none of the little ones really matter any more. It's weird, because Dad and I have hardly had a chance to talk."  
"You're got your dad back, Harm. Even if you haven't had really got a rapport with him yet, he's still here, and he's still your dad."  
"You could be right."  
"I'm always right." Harm rolled his head to the side to look at her, a look of pure scepticism on his face. "Okay, maybe not always, but usually."  
Harm leaned over to kiss her again, not bothering to dignify that remark with a comeback. When this kiss finished, they did not break apart, but lay there, lips almost touching, their breath mingling.  
"Seriously, Harm, what happens now?" There was a hint of nervousness in her voice. Harm moved his hand to her face, gently pushing a strand of hair out of her eye.  
"You go back to JAG. I can't, too many people saw me get shot. I stay in DC for as long as I can, then I go back to the SGC. They need me there."  
"I need you here."  
"I know, Mac. I know. We'll work something out. I could get transferred to the Pentagon sometime; work on translations and stuff from Washington, advise the Joint Chiefs like Paul Davies does. If he doesn't survive, they could need someone to take his place soon. Or you could transfer to the SGC, head up the JAG department. I can't fly the new F- 504s, head up a SEAL team, do translations and intel analysis and still have time for all the base's legal work. And there are more Marines than Navy at the SGC anyway. But whatever we choose to do, Mac, whichever of us transfers, or if we both stay where we are and I come home every six months as if I were still serving on a carrier, we'll do it together."  
"You promise?"  
"I promise, Sarah. Nothing's gonna keep me away from you any more." He stroked her hair. "Nothing."  
  
Twenty-eight levels down inside a mountain in Colorado, sirens began to wail.  
  
Ten minutes later, Harm's cellphone rang. The shrill noise shattered the peace of the apartment. Annoyed, Harm picked it up with a grip strong enough to crack diamond and spoke curtly into the receiver.  
"Rabb."  
  
"What?"  
  
"When?"  
  
"Anybody get out?"  
  
"How many?"  
  
"What can I do?"  
  
"I'm up to it, sir." Mac watched the expression on Harm's face with growing alarm. Alarm which increased when he looked at the glass blocks which hid his father and Admiral Boone from view. "You need a couple more skilled pilots?"  
  
"The F-504's not complicated to handle, sir."  
  
"They're both legends in the Navy, and it sounds like we need all the help we can get. We've got more F-504s than pilots trained to handle them."  
  
"If Thor can get us to the mountain, we can be through the gate in half an hour."  
  
"Yes sir. See you in five, sir." He slammed the phone shut, and was off the bed and down the stairs in a single movement, Mac close behind him.  
"You two feel like kicking some Goa'uld butt?"  
  
To Mac, the SGC was a labyrinth. Every corridor was identical, every door painted the same shade of grey. But Harm knew exactly where he was, and exactly where he was going, from the moment they arrived. He moved quickly, the other three having to run to keep up.  
After going down in an elevator to what appeared to be the very lowest level of the complex, Harm led them round a few more corners and up a small spiral staircase into a large room with a long table down the middle, not dissimilar to the conference room at JAG. A bald Air Force two- star rose to greet them.  
"Good to have you back, Hammer. Admiral, Captain, Colonel, welcome to the SGC. I only wish this was under better circumstances."  
Harm broke in. "What's the situation on 683, sir?"  
"Our people are still holding the gate. I've got every available SG team out there. Prometheus is taking heavy fire; I've ordered her to try and take cover in the asteroid belt, but we can't tell how long that will buy them. Two more motherships dropped out of hyperspace just after I spoke to you, but they don't seem to have released any Gliders. I've got every available pilot ready to take off on 685; they're just waiting for your arrival. The journey should take about ten minutes at full speed and still leave you plenty of fuel for combat, even if you're forced down into the atmosphere. Your orders are to destroy any Goa'uld vessels you can, the tactics I'll leave up to you. You can get into your flight suits when you get to 685. Dismissed."  
The three men turned and left, Harm Sr and Boone following Harm, having absolutely no idea where to go or what exactly they had just got themselves into. As Harm began to descend the stairs, Mac called out to him.  
"Good luck!"  
He winked at her, and went on his way. Mac turned back to the General, whom she assumed was the General Hammond Harm had mentioned in his account of his recent life.  
"Anything I can do to help, sir?"  
"Colonel, I know this isn't really your territory as a JAG officer, but I need every available person to hold the gate on 683. The planet has huge tactical value, and we're close to finding what could be a store of ancient technology which could be of great help to us. On top of that, if the Prometheus is seriously damaged, that gate could well be the only way home for her crew. SG-1 and SG-6 should be arriving soon. If you have no serious objection, I'd like you to go through with them. One extra pair of hands holding an automatic weapon can sometimes make all the difference against Jaffa."  
"No objections, sir, I'm qualified to do this. If we've got people out there, I can't just stay here and let them fight for their lives."  
"The Sergeant here will show you where to go to get kitted out, then take you to the gate room to join the others."  
"Aye sir."  
"And when you get there, tell them air support's on its way. Dismissed, and God speed."  
  
Slightly less than ten minutes later, Mac stood in front of a huge stone circle with SG-1 and SG-6. The inner circle on the "stargate" changed direction one final time, and then a huge wave of shimmering blue light came out towards her before settling down to hang there like a vertical swimming pool. She gaped at it for a moment, then followed the others, who walked through, weapons at the ready, as if this were an everyday occurrence. For them, it pretty much was.  
  
The gate journey made riding in a Tomcat with Harm seem like a pleasant experience, but Mac had no time to dwell on the nausea as she stepped out on the other side.  
She had more important things to concentrate on, like ducking behind a huge rock as a ball of yellow light flew towards her.  
  
Fifteen F-504s had just entered hyperspace, and were a little under ten minutes away from their destination. Harm was in the lead.  
"Okay gentlemen. When we drop out of hyperspace, we split up into three attack wings, each with five aircraft. One wing will concentrate on taking out the mothership supplying the gliders. One wing will find the Prometheus and defend her. The rest of us will deal with the Gliders making an active attack on the planet, or which seem to be about to. If the other two motherships start to pose a serious threat, we'll reassess the situation. I'm transmitting your wing designations now. Dad, Admiral, neither of you is used to zero-G flying, so you'll both be with me. Anybody got any questions?"  
A chorus of negatives answered that question. "Okay then. Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer."  
"You couldn't think of something a tad more original to say, sir?" an anonymous voice called over the radio. "What kind of lawyer are you?"  
"Okay. Anyone who's not an Ace by the end of this operation is going TAD to JAG as a file clerk."  
Gasps of mock-horror were heard from all around, and some good- natured banter started up.  
"They always like this?" Harm's dad's voice came over a different channel.  
"They're just warming up. Wait until we're done. Then they'll start talking."  
"And I thought we were crazy when we flew over Nam."  
  
After that one shot, nothing more came near Mac for over a minute, and she made her way out from behind her rock. A large number of dirty, in many cases blood-stained men, along with a few women, were spread out in a rough circle around the gate, which stood at the top of a steep rise, thickly wooded. Colonel O'Neill was talking to the Lieutenant Colonel who had until their arrival been the senior officer on the planet.  
"The Insane Squad should be here quite soon, hopefully take some of those Gliders out of the picture. What sort of numbers are we dealing with on the ground?"  
"There's at least a thousand of them, sir, but this hill's slowing them down. All the vegetation means we can't tell exactly where they are, or how many of them. They're coming through quite fast, but never enough of them at one time to completely overwhelm us."  
"Casualties?"  
"Three dead. Almost everyone's either met part of a staff weapon explosion or been hit by some debris, but everyone who's alive can still handle a weapon. No idea how many Jaffa we've taken out. We're at more risk from above; the gate's an easy target for Gliders, and if they take it out it's just a matter of time before they just mow us down."  
"Nice to know you're still thinking positively. I'll take it from here, you rest for a couple of minutes then get back on the line." Jack looked around, and saw Mac watching him. "Colonel, c'mere."  
"Sir?"  
"We can't fit any more people into this defence without widening the circle, and if we take the time to do that we'll be vulnerable while people change position. But we can get a small team out of here, try and make their way into the woods and pick Jaffa off from close up. SG-6 enjoy doing that sort of thing, though they usually have Hammer to provide luck. You go with them; if you ever get Hammer drunk enough he'll go on about you enough for me to know you can handle this, and you'd blend in nicely with the trees around here. Take the slope behind the gate, there are fewer Jaffa down there."  
"Yes sir."  
  
If you had told Mac that morning that by the late afternoon she would have seen the man she loved get shot in the chest and miraculously heal, gone back in time for 18 hours and rescue said man's father from certain death, killed a man she had once considered a friend, learned of the existence of yellow-eyed aliens, travelled halfway across the galaxy in an instant and then led a SEAL team into action on another planet, she would have thought you were either completely insane or seriously lacking in a realistic sense of humour. Which only goes to show.  
  
"Dropping out of hyperspace. NOW!"  
The F-504s all decelerated abruptly, throwing their pilots around in their seats, but no-one could allow that to affect them. All banter had by this time ceased, and the pilots got down to business, dividing as they had been instructed by Harm and making for their targets.  
"Okay guys, let's hit the atmosphere. Looks like our friends on the ground have a lot of company. Don't shoot anything until we get down there unless you're directly endangered.  
The five of them descended quickly into the atmosphere, heading for the co-ordinates of the gate. As they approached, Harm let out a low whistle.  
"Now that's what I call being outnumbered."  
  
The sound of one of the other pilots swallowing was clearly audible over the radio connection. The other gave a hollow laugh.  
"Well, with that many of them, it'll be kinda hard to miss."  
Harm made no response to the comment. He was too busy mentally checking that all his affairs were in order.  
  
On the ground below, Mac had just taken out her third Jaffa. She was beginning to get the hang of it. Blend into the background until you heard one coming, then jump out, zat it three times in rapid succession, then blend back again, having moved a few yards through the undergrowth. The SG- 6 SEALs were all nearby, but Mac couldn't see any of them. Every so often she would hear the sound of some variety of weapon being discharged, but other than that they made no noise.  
While waiting for Jaffa to walk up to her and get killed, Mac began to take note of her surroundings. The trees towering above her did not seem particularly alien. They reminded her for some reason of British Columbia.  
Except for that large, furry thing three-quarters of the way up the tree by which she was standing. That would definitely look out of place in Canada. At least, she didn't think the country could boast green furry creatures equal in size to a large black bear. She was sure she would have heard about it.  
  
"Uh, Hammer?"  
"Go ahead, Frodo." He was the shortest pilot the SGC had to offer and he wore a gold ring on a chain around his neck. Of course his call-sign was Frodo.  
"You don't happen to have a nuke on you, do you? A really big nuke?"  
"Left it in my other suit."  
"Bummer. So we just gonna throw everything we got at them?"  
"Sounds like a plan. But take the time to get a lock first. Doesn't look like we can afford to waste anything. When we get in close, move to lasers."  
"We got lasers in these things?" This from Boone. He knew perfectly well they were equipped with lasers; Harm had briefed him on them; he was simply keeping the tone light.  
"Yes sir, yellow button."  
"I have got to get me one of these."  
Ahead of them, Death Gliders were swarming like bees. There seemed to be at least two hundred of them. The only hope the slightly outnumbered human pilots had was that they were flying so close together that taking out one would take out others in the explosion.  
Harm figured he might as well be the one to find out. He released one of his missiles when he had only a vague approximation of a lock. His scope was still reading the Gliders as a single entity.  
"Missile away. Let's hope this does something interesting."  
  
The five pilots watched with baited breath. The Gliders, most of which were concentrating on attacking some sort of ancient monument on the ground, made no move to head off the missile. It passed by three Gliders on the edge of the swarm before coming into conact with one and detonating.  
When the flame of the explosion faded away, four damaged Gliders could be seen hurtling towards the planet's surface, completely out of control. A cheer resounded through the communication system.  
"Uh guys, hate to rain on my own parade, but I think we just attracted their attention."  
  
Harm was not wrong. The swarm of Death Gliders were now heading towards the intrepid aviators at an alarming speed. However, the Jaffa piloting said Gliders did not seem to have learned anything from what had just happened. Harm made a quick decision.  
"Okay, screw getting missile locks. Everything you've got right at them, now. Try and spread it out a bit so we can take out as many as possible. Everything that's left we take out however we can with lasers. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure."  
As the entire payload of the five F-504s made their way towards the oncoming mass of enemy fighters, Harm heard Starbuck, named for the womanising Lieutenant in Battlestar Galactica, begin to mumble something under his breath. Harm laughed aloud when he worked out what he was saying, and heard Boone and Frodo laugh along with him. From his father there was no sound. The reference was entirely lost on him.  
"Luke took out the Death Star. Luke took out the Death Star. Luke took out the Death Star. Luke took out the.."  
And then the five men bore witness to the mother of all explosions.  
  
Mac, alarmed by the sound of the explosion, or series of explosions, and almost knocked from her feet by the shockwave that accompanied them, paused in the relative open of a small clearing to stare at the sky. She got the distinct impression Harm had had something to do with what she was witnessing. She did not, however, have long to ponder this before she heard the sound she now recognised as a Staff Weapon being prepared for firing. Right behind her.  
She turned, slowly.  
A Jaffa stood before her, fully armoured. At that moment, Mac realised what the Jaffa reminded her of. Imperial Storm Troopers. The same form-hiding armour which in no way prevented them from being picked off easily by the good guys. The same facelessness. The same impression that they were only really there as cannon-fodder, and the same pathetic inability to shoot straight, despite spending their entire lives training to serve a god-like being with incredible powers and a weird voice.  
These insights, however, were not really going to help her. The only comfort that could possibly be drawn from them was the fact that no major character is ever killed by a lowly minion, and rarely successfully captured by less than five.  
Which meant she might have a fighting chance if she could think of something to do before this one's little friends turned up. She couldn't yell for help. That would bring both sides running, and potentially put the SEALs at risk. She had no particular desire to face Harm after this was over and explain to him how she got his team killed. She probably wouldn't have time to draw a zat, or any sort of weapon, on the Jaffa before he was able to get off a shot. All the freakish alien technology in the universe wouldn't save her from a third degree burn to the inside of the chest cavity. Attempting hand-to-hand against a guy dressed in metal probably wasn't the best choice of action.  
She and the Jaffa stared each other down, neither moving, while Mac desperately tried to think of some way to get herself out of this mess.  
  
In the air above, Harm and his fighters were slightly shell-shocked.  
"Okay, which of you was carrying a Naquadriah warhead?"  
A stunned silence provided all the answer he needed.  
"Because if I ever find out it was one of you, I'm going to shake your hand right before I deck you."  
Still more silence. They were all fully aware of why Hammer would want to deck anyone who had had a part in what they had just seen.  
"Perhaps one of the Gliders had one?" Frodo's voice was small, uncertain.  
"If one of those Gliders had been carrying a Naquadriah bomb, the entire area around the gate would now be a wasteland, and the gate would be a small puddle of goo in the middle of it."  
This was the source of Harm's anger. Okay, so the Gliders had been taken out. If they had been much closer to the gate when it happened, everyone on the ground, both Jaffa and human, would be dead. Their flesh would have melted in the heat from the blast. The effect of the naquadriah explosion on the Stargate would probably have taken out the five of them as well.  
As it was, they had been high enough that it was entirely likely nothing on the ground had been harmed, except possibly by falling bits of Gliders and Jaffa, and the monumental shockwave that was likely to have hit shortly after the main explosion.  
Harm forced his thoughts away from what could have happened. He knew his team had probably been recalled to the SGC shortly after he had and was now down there somewhere, but if he dwelt on what might have been, he would never be able to get the job done. He was brought completely back to the present by one of his instrument panels lighting up.  
"Frodo, Starbuck, get up there and cover the guys attacking the mothership. Lasers are all you've got, but they're better than nothing, and if there are any more Gliders hanging around up there, we need them out of the picture ASAP. When the snakeheads work out what just happened down here, they're not gonna be happy. Dad, Admiral, we're gonna take out some of the Jaffa on the ground. Only shoot when you can clearly see a target; we don't know whether we've got teams out among the enemy running interference."  
He received acknowledgement from the other four, and changed his heading slightly to make straight for the gate.  
  
Mac was by now considering simply grabbing the Jaffa's Staff Weapon and hitting him with it. She probably wouldn't get anywhere, but it would be better than the two of them just standing there staring at each other like awkward teenagers on a blind date.  
However, she was not forced to make a final decision on this score. For help arrived, from a very unexpected direction.  
  
When a cat falls out of a tree, the experience tends to be somewhat painful for any unforunate soul who happens to be underneath the cat at the time. This frequently has little to do with the weight of the cat, though a seriously large cat could probably cause a serious concussion. The main source of the pain is that however otherwise friendly, affectionate and strictly non-violent when it comes to humans the cat may be, there is something built into the feline psyche that demands it arch its back and extend its claws. Because of the general size and shape of most cats, this means that should they land on someone's head, five claws dig into said head at each temple and four a little behind each ear. The shock of the sudden arrival of a cat on the head causes the targeted human to jump violently, startled, which in turn causes the cat to dig deeper, feline stubbornness preventing it from merely giving in and jumping down to the ground. Rivers of red blood proceed to flow down the unfortunate human's head and the back of their neck. Much swearing is generally heard.  
  
This, however, is nothing compared to what happens when a small green bear leaps out of a tree, four-inch claws extended and swiping violently at imaginary foes on the way down, and lands on top of a heavily armoured humanoid which wasn't even aware that such creatures existed.  
Especially given that it rapidly becomes apparent to both afore- mentioned humanoid and the woman he was holding at the Jaffa equivalent of gun-point that the green bear's claws have little regard for the supposedly superior tensile strength of the metal in which the humanoid is clad. And the fact that whereas a cat is generally fully aware that causing excessive damage to a human may seriously diminish the chances of it continuing to be supplied with frequent meals and having a nice comfy armchair to occupy, strange green bears apparently have no such concerns.  
  
Mac found herself forced to duck as the bear made its presence known. Twice in one day. Not that she would admit to ducking. She was, of course, taking cover.  
Shards of metal flew towards her as the Jaffa's armour was ripped apart like so much tissue-paper. Despite her attempts to stay out of the way, one such shard embedded itself in the fleshy part of Mac's upper arm. To prevent herself from crying out she had to bite her lower lip so hard she drew blood.  
When the flying pieces of metal were replaced by flying hunks of flesh, Mac cautiously got to her feet, allowing herself to be spattered by the dead Jaffa's blood. On the other side of the small clearing she saw Frank Cody watching with his mouth hanging open. She supposed the sounds of the metal ripping had attracted his attention.  
It was at this time that Mac got her first sight of a Goa'uld larva. She had been told that the younger Goa'uld were paler and less sinister- looking than the adult variety, but at the moment her eyes fell on it, she found it hard to believe that anything could have a greater aura of evil. The almost white creature was wriggling feebly on the ground, sending out sinister vibes more stongly than anything Mac had ever witnessed in her life, including the terrorist she and Harm had prosecuted aboard the Seahawk.  
An instant later, the thing was sliced in half by one of the bear- thing's hind claws. Mac felt as if an incredible weight had been lifted off her chest. One of those things had tried to destroy Harm's mind; she didn't like the idea that any others might be allowed to live.  
  
Unaware that the woman he loved had just been miraculously saved from almost certain death, unaware even of her presence on the planet beneath him, Harm continued to fly, heading straight for a mass of Jaffa gathered just below the treeline on the side of the hill leading up to the front of the gate. They appeared to be massing themselves for a frontal assault of some sort, though as he didn't know exactly what the conditions in the woods were, Harm could make no guess as to how successful they would be.  
  
The green creature had by now completely shredded the Jaffa's corpse, and Mac was able to take a closer look at it, now that it was no longer flailing around so fast that you could barely make out either its size or shape.  
It was far smaller than the one she had seen a while before up in a tree. If she had to hazard a guess, she would say this one was not yet fully mature, possibly even only a short time out of infancy, if the size of the other were anything to go by.  
Having finished destroying its foe, the creature looked a little lost. It turned its head towards Mac and let out a pitiful wail, of the sort fairly universal to any animal in some sort of distress, even humans to some extent.  
It rose onto four legs and ambled towards Mac. Seeing Cody raise his weapon, she gave a slight shake of her head. The Jaffa had been armed when the green ball of fury had fallen upon it, and it was possible that that was the reason for its attack. She did not want to take any chances. She had no idea how intelligent the creature before her might be. Cody seemed to understand this, and lowered the weapon, though still keeping a firm hold on it.  
It sat down in front of her, raising a pair of pathetic golden eyes to hers, and made a small mewing noise. Its head was not like that of a bear; there was something faintly feline in it, though Mac was unable to pinpoint quite what it was. It reached out a paw and gently batted Mac's left foot, in a decidedly cat-like gesture.  
  
As Harm approached the massed ranks of Jaffa, his father and Admiral Boone close behind him, he prepared to fire his lasers. However, he caught sight of something on the ground which brought him up short, and he abandoned his strafing run to go round and have a look from another angle, instructing his two companions to do the same.  
  
Jaffa were running out of the woods as if every demon in hell was after them.  
  
All of SG-6 gathered around Mac, though at a safe distance. The sudden retreat of all the Jaffa in the vicinity left them free to satisfy their curiosity regarding the sounds of splintering metal that they had heard a couple of minutes previously.  
The creature paid them no attention. It was concerned entirely with Mac, and appeared to be making a very concerted effort to become her friend. It mewed, it rubbed its head against her thigh, it playfully rolled in the dust, claws now safely retracted.  
Mac had no idea how to act. Gingerly, she reached down and patted it on the head. Another feline quality revealed itself then when a deep rumbling began in its throat and it rubbed the side of its head against Mac's wrist, as if scent-marking her.  
"Uh, Colonel?"  
Mac tore her attention away from the green ball of fur now seated next to her feet and look over at where SG-6 were gathered together. "Commander?"  
"We should really head back to the gate. See if anyone knows what made the Jaffa retreat."  
"Of course. Let's move."  
  
When they arrived at the gate ten five minutes later, the creature still at Mac's side, they found an air of tense anticipation. Seeing O'Neill and Teal'c holding a muted discussion over the DHD, they made their way over there.  
"SG-6 and Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie reporting back, sir."  
Jack turned to look at them, then did a double-take.  
"Woah. Looks like the Colonel's made a new friend."  
"It saved my life, sir. Jumped out of a tree onto a Jaffa which was trying to decide whether to shoot me or take me alive."  
"What happened to the Jaffa?"  
"He got shredded, sir."  
"He wasn't wearing armour?"  
"The armour got shredded too, sir."  
Jack raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me that thing fell onto a fully-armoured armed Jaffa and made iron filings out of its armour and mincemeat out of the rest of it?"  
"Yes sir."  
"We could use a few of these guys on our side."  
"I think this one already is, sir. It's made no aggressive move against anyone else, sir. It even purred."  
O'Neill looked over at Teal'c. "T, you ever come across these things?"  
"I have not, O'Neill. However, there is a Jaffa legend concerning what happened when the Furlings left this galaxy."  
"They're one of the whole Four Races deal, right?"  
"Indeed. Legend has it that they left behind a great archive of their civilisation, hidden on a planet the Goa'uld were unfamiliar with. They left as guardians a number of the creatures they used to defend their settlements. These creatures reputedly had the ability to detect Goa'uld symbiotes, and would attack all those they found carrying them."  
"You think this is one of those creatures?"  
"That would seem plausible. It would explain why it concerned itself only with attacking the Jaffa, and then acted in a friendly manner towards the one whom the Jaffa had been threatening."  
"Yeah. Okay. Anyone see any more of these things?"  
"I saw a larger one up a tree a little while before I saw this one. If others have been acting the same way, it would explain why the Jaffa got spooked and ran."  
O'Neill nodded. "Okay, here's what's gonna happen. Every third team will leave our perimeter and head into the woods, looking for more of these things in trees or on the ground and any sign of Jaffa still in the area. Everyone else stays where they are and keeps their eyes open. Cody, go and spread the word." Cody came to attention for a split second before leaving to do as instructed.  
O'Neill picked up a handheld radio.  
"This is O'Neill. Any of you flyboys feel like talkin'?"  
Harm's voice filtered through. "Hey Jack, what the hell just happened down there? I've never seen Jaffa run that fast."  
"You can see them?"  
"Yeah, a bunch of them just left the woods at the bottom of the hill. They're firing on us, but none of them are going anywhere near the trees. It's like they think the devil's in there or something."  
"Something a bit like that. You know anything about a legend concerning guardians left behind by the Furlings?"  
"You mean the snake-hating tree things that can sense symbiotes? All I know is they're supposed to defend some amazing treasure, and no Jaffa has lasted long enough after seeing one to give a precise description of one before dying or going insane."  
"I think we found them. Or more precisely, one of them found us. One jumped out of a tree right in front of Colonel MacKenzie and tore a Jaffa to shreds, armour included."  
"Mac's down there? Take that, snake gut!" There followed the sounds of weapons fire, and then a slightly gleeful chuckle. "These Jaffa just don't give up."  
Mac had seen how affected Harm had been by his experience with Apollo several times over the course of that day, but those words really drove it home. He had never done anything approximating to gloating over fallen enemies before.  
"What was that explosion a few minutes ago?"  
"I think it was some sort of Naquadriah explosion. Took out practically every Death Glider. The few it missed high-tailed it out of the atmosphere. If these Jaffa ever realise they're beaten, we're gonna follow their example and see what the situation with the motherships is. The guys up there say they're okay, but I'd like to see for myself."  
"May as well head up there now, the Jaffa aren't gonna risk coming back through the woods, we're safe from them. Once you've dealt with the main threat they're not even gonna be an issue."  
"Roger. See you in a while. Have fun. Rabb out."  
A short time later, three F-504s passed overhead, obviously on their way to where the main battle was raging.  
  
As Harm and his two companions left the atmosphere, they discovered a massive flaw in the F-504's systems.  
  
The F-504 was designed to fly both in atmosphere and in the vacuum of space. Given the widely different nature of these two environments the designers, thinking they were incredibly clever, installed two different kinds of short-range sensors in the fighter, one suited for detecting other fighters in atmosphere, the other for doing so in space.  
The system for detecting hostiles in atmosphere worked on an elaborate sonar system, sending out waves of ultrasound and waiting for echoes. This method was used rather than the more conventional radar a fighter might be fitted with on the grounds that alien atmospheres were more likely to prove hostile to radio waves than to sound waves, for some long-winded reason Harm had never actually listened to. The system for detection in space was a variation on radar, using a special frequency of radio waves.  
The two systems could not be used at the same time, and therein lay the problem. When one was in space looking for hostiles on a planet, everything worked pretty much as it was supposed to. The radar systems were able to detect enemy aircraft and the like in the atmosphere. However, the reverse was not true.  
When flying in atmosphere, the F-504s operated on their sound-based technology.  
Sound waves are longitudinal. They are passed by molecules in the medium through which they are passing moving closer together and then further away from each other.  
There are no molecules in a vacuum, and as a result of this, sound cannot travel through space, a fact which many sci-fi directors have yet to grasp.  
So when Harm, Boone and Harm Sr left the atmosphere of the planet to join in the battle in the void beyond, they had absolutely no idea what they were going into.  
  
Bursting out of the atmosphere, Harm immediately had to swerve to avoid the debris of a destroyed Death Glider, which had begun to hurtle planetwards. His wingmen were slightly more lucky, both having about two seconds to dodge out of the way of the shards of metal hanging in space ahead of them. But had the timing of their exit of the atmosphere been only slightly different, all three men would have been dead before they had time to mentally curse the genii who thought of using sonar instead of radar in atmosphere.  
As it was, they were for a few seconds little more than sitting ducks, relying on their eyesight to pick out enemy Gliders whilst their sonar systems were disengaged and replaced by radar. If any of the Jaffa flying the Death Gliders had been particularly quick off the mark, the three Naval officers would have been at a serious disadvantage for the beginning of a dogfight, being unable to completely rely on their systems and slightly disoriented by their abrupt change in scenery.  
Luck, however, was on the side of the humans. The Jaffa pilots dotted around did not immediately notice them, being more concerned with the obvious threat posed by the other F-504 pilots. One mothership was already disabled, and of the other two one was playing hide-and-seek with the Prometheus amongst the asteroids while the other was experiencing a full frontal assault from seven of the F-504s.  
  
"Hey sirs, nice of you to join us. You wanna play? We've nearly cut through this thing's armour down to the main power core. Shields are down, we don't know how long until they get them working again. Once we take this sucker out, the other one's gonna be a piece of cake. Most of the Jaffa are running scared now."  
The speaker was a young Air Force Captain who had come to the SGC only a few months after completing Flight School. As he had spent less time bound to the Earth than most of the other pilots the SGC used, he tended to lead the way in zero-G flight, as he had fewer instinctive reactions to overcome.  
"Sounds like fun. Missiles at the mothership and lasers at the Gliders, right?"  
"You read my mind, sir. If you don't have any missiles left, we'd appreciate it if you could cover those of us who do."  
"We're on it. May the Force be with you."  
"Always is, sir."  
  
It turned out to be depressingly easy to prevent the Jaffa from taking out the attacking F-504s. Whoever designed Death Gliders had apparently been more concerned with making them look cool that with providing efficient fighting machines. The blasts from their staff-weapon like cannon could not be directed anywhere other than straight ahead; there were no independent weapon directing systems. So if a Glider was forced to bank right, anything which had previously been in its sights was rendered completely unhittable. As a result of this lack of threat from the Gliders, the second mothership was dealt with with relative ease.  
  
It was when they went for the third one, the one hunting the Prometheus amongst the asteroids, that things became slightly more tricky.  
  
Asteroids, Harm quickly decided, were annoying little buggers. Though most of them, he had to admit, were not particularly little. They varied in size so much it was irritating. They moved around. They blocked your target from your view. And most irritating of all, they reflected radar beams. So much that it was pretty much pointless to pay any attention at all to one's radar readout. It was utterly impossible to tell what was an asteroid, what was a Glider, what was the mothership and, perhaps most importantly, what was the Prometheus.  
Prometheus, as she was involved in a deadly game of hide and seek, was not transmitting her position on any frequency. Her transponder, rarely used anyway in the dark reaches of deep space, was inactive. Surges of energy would occasionally show up as spikes on one of Harm's monitors, but it was impossible to tell what the origin of the energy was. It could be the Prometheus' energy weapons. It could be the weapons of the mothership or her Glider escort. It could be an explosion from a Glider crashing after its pilot misjudged the distance between two asteroids.  
In some ways, the game was more like Sardines than hide and seek, in that everyone was looking for the Prometheus, and once they found her, no- one went away, wherever their loyalties might lie. Some would defend the Prometheus, some would try to blast her into smithereens.  
And then there was the fact that not only did he not know exactly where Prometheus was, but he also did not know where anyone else on his side was. When you're dodging asteroids, flying in strict formation is not your first concern. Dodging huge continent-sized rocks and hunks of ice whilst at the same time avoiding the notice of your enemy makes survival your first concern, and the ability to hurt your foe turns up occasionally as a lucky bonus. The few times Harm found Death Gliders in his sights, he was just as surprised as the Jaffa who had appeared out of nowhere.  
  
Harm found the mothership without catching so much as a glimpse of the Prometheus, and without having a clear idea of exactly where he was. The lack of gravity in space, whilst liberating, completely messes up the internal compass. Especially since space has no North Pole.  
It was hard to work out exactly what was going on; the Goa'uld, when not using sand-coloured metal to make their ships look like pyramids, frequently worked in black. Which doesn't show up that well against the black shadows thrown by asteroids.  
Out of nowhere, a Glider headed towards him, probably with intent to kill him. It was hard to tell with Death Gliders; they always looked menacing, and it was impossible to tell whether or not the pilot had seen him. When the pilot started firing at Harm, all doubt surrounding the subject vanished, and Harm shot back. The Glider turned from a hostile enemy fighter into a ball of flame ridiculously easily. In an effort to find out what the precise status of the action against the mothership was, Harm opened contact with his people.  
"Gentlemen, don't talk to me unless you're near the mothership. I don't want their chances of finding anyone not already nearby improved at all. What's the mothership's status?"  
There was a slight crackling on the radio, then a voice came through loud and clear. "We haven't been able to get through her shields yet, sir. We were hoping you'd be able to help with that."  
"Oh?"  
"You've got a better idea than any of the rest of us about how those shields work and where the generator is."  
Harm took less than a second to make his decision when met with that news. "Okay, here's what's gonna happen."  
  
Down on the planet, all was relatively quiet. There had been no sign of any Jaffa for more than ten minutes. Mac's new friend had seated itself upon the DHD and was surverying the amassed ranks of the Tau'ri with an air of sleepy contentment, always careful to keep Mac in its line of sight.  
One of the teams sent out to check out the trees returned. They were followed by a number of the green creatures, more similar in size to the one Mac had seen up a tree than the one which had saved her from the Jaffa. As they passed Major Carter on the perimeter, a couple of them turned their heads to growl at her, though one of them was cuffed, fairly viciously, by a larger one.  
Jack waited patiently for them to approach him.  
"I take it Colonel MacKenzie's friend here isn't the only one that's on our side."  
"I'd say they're all on our side, sir. The place is covered in bits of Jaffa, but we haven't lost a single person to these. guys."  
"Cool." Jack stared at the largest one for a moment. "Uh, do they, you know, have any way of confirming that? 'Cause those claws look kinda sharp."  
"Sir, if they were going to attack us, they'd have done it by now. They outnumber us, it's their home ground, and what they did to the Jaffa really isn't pretty."  
"You think they'd show us where this Furling treasure we're looking for is?"  
"I thought they were supposed to be guarding it, sir?"  
Mac stepped in at this point. "Guarding it against the Goa'uld. They've already shown they're no threat to normal humans. They might believe that by helping us they can hurt the Goa'uld, which they seem to want to do. Unless they just wanted to get rid of the more immediate danger, or don't think we're a threat even with whatever technology the Furlings left behind." Mac had no idea what the Furlings were, but she was a lawyer. Take an unfamiliar word, use it in the same context everyone else did, and bluff your way out.  
"You talk like a lawyer, Colonel. Evaluating all sides of the argument."  
"I am a lawyer, sir."  
"That just makes it worse." Most people nearby managed to hide their smiles. They were, after all, used to O'Neill. You had to get used to him quickly or risk shooting him to get him to shut up.  
  
"Uh, Hammer, are you sure this is a good plan?" The young Zoomie sounded nervous, which fighter pilots rarely allowed themselves to do, especially in a combat situation.  
"You got a better idea, Captain?"  
"No, sir, but. it's really like that plan O'Neill and Carter used to take out Anubis' Naquadriah weapon, and even Major Carter agreed that was the wackiest plan she'd ever come up with."  
"It worked, though."  
"Yeah."  
"And wacky does not mean bad."  
"I guess not."  
"And if I was sane, I wouldn't be here, right?"  
"No way."  
"So I don't see the problem."  
"Apart from the fact that if something goes even a tiny bit wrong you could materialise inside a Goa'uld mothership, sir?"  
"Captain, it's my experience as a Naval Aviator that it's easier to miss the deck of a carrier than to hit it. So it follows that it'll be easier to not materialise inside the ship than to do so."  
"Uh guys, if I ever ask Hammer to be my lawyer, shoot me."  
A chorus of amused assents met him, then Harm decided it was time to get down to business.  
"You all have your orders. If something does go wrong, just do your best to take the ship out, even if there's a chance I might be on her. One man's a small price to pay to get rid of one of these things."  
"Can we have that in writing, sir? Because the rest of your team are kinda scary when they're mad."  
"Let's do this. Good luck everyone."  
Harm took a deep breath, and flicked the switch that would take his fighter into hyperspace.  
  
An instant later, he dropped out of hyperspace. It took him a couple of seconds to be completely certain of where he was.  
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He was inside the mothership's shields, but had not collided with the actual vessel.  
"Gentlemen, I'm still alive. Let's play."  
  
The plan was relatively simple. Harm would get inside the ship's shields, take out the shield generators, and get started on taking out the actual vessel. Once the shields were down, everyone else would join him.  
The plan hadn't counted on the mothership having a newly-installed tractor beam designed to counter-act those precise tactics.  
  
The air was rent with the screams of dying Jaffa. The guardians had caught up with them, and were wreaking havok in their ranks.  
Jack watched those at the gate with an air of quiet bemusement.  
"Is it just me, or are those guys like Ewoks on speed?"  
"O'Neill, Ewoks are not green, nor do they display such naturally aggressive tendencies."  
"That's where the speed comes in, Teal'c."  
"How does the velocity at which a creature is travelling determine its colour and demeanour?"  
"Speed's a drug, T. Makes you act weird."  
"It is similar to blue jello?"  
Someone nearby gave a snort of supressed laughter. Almost everyone within earshot smiled. Mac just felt confused.  
"What makes you say that, T?"  
"O'Neill, was it not you who stated that Major Carter only ever eats blue jello because it enables her to dance with the Faerie Folk?"  
Major Carter, it appeared, could hear every word that was being said, and was trying to hide her amusement at the expression on her team leader's face. The guard on the perimeter had been relaxed slightly, and she was one of the people able to look towards the DHD rather than out towards the trees.  
"When did I say that, Teal'c?" O'Neill was looking decidedly uncomfortable. Mac briefly wondered whether Teal'c, who she had been told was a Jaffa but "one of the good Goa'uld-ass-kicking Jaffa", had genuinely believed what O'Neill had told him. Then she noticed the arched eyebrow at the slightly upturned corners of his mouth. Teal'c was getting some amusement, at O'Neill's expense.  
"Do you not recall, O'Neill? After we attempted to cheer Major Carter up with Pizza and Star Wars, I mentioned I had heard of a place where women do battle in a ring of jello, and we summoned Daniel Jackson and went there. When we were departing I observed that."  
"Yeah yeah I remember." O'Neill was squirming. "Let's just forget about that, okay?"  
"As you wish, O'Neill."  
  
Nothing much was happening with the green creatures. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Probably for all the Jaffa on the planet to be dead.  
But this got Mac wondering.  
"Sir?" It felt weird to be calling someone like Colonel O'Neill "sir". How he had reached the rank of Bird Colonel with his attitude was a mystery.  
"Colonel?"  
"I was wondering, sir."  
"Don't keep us all in suspense. What were you wondering?"  
"These creatures seem determined to kill all the Jaffa in the area, right?"  
"Yeah."  
"And I'm assuming that they've been here a while, right?"  
"We assume so."  
"So why didn't they start attacking Jaffa until I was threatened by one of them? There were both Jaffa and SG teams here well before I arrived, we've even taken losses. So what was it that sparked them off and got them to start killing the Jaffa?"  
O'Neill just stared at her. Carter came up next to him. "She has a point, sir. Ma'am, did anything happen just before the creature saved you?"  
She thought for a moment. "The explosion that took out all the Gliders. That's what distracted me so that the Jaffa was able to sneak up on me. You think it might not be a coincidence?"  
"I don't know, ma'am. But it's definitely worth considering the possibility that the two are linked somehow."  
  
Harm fought the tractor beam. It was no use. He was being pulled inexorably closer to the hull of the huge black pyramid.  
"Hammer? What's taking so long?"  
"Tractor beam. Shouldn't be a problem. I'll have the shields down soon."  
Looking out of the side of his F-504, Harm spotted a small hunk of rock hurtling towards the ship. It must have come through hyperspace with him. As he watched it, he realised something. Despite its proximity to him, the tractor beam wasn't touching it, either because it had no great size or because it emitted no energy reading.  
He looked from the rock to the shield generator. In a few seconds, the two would be directly lined up. Harm might not have any missiles of his own to shoot, or lasers powerful enough to take out the shield generator at that distance, but perhaps that wouldn't be a problem.  
  
"Eight-ball, centre pocket."  
"What?!" Several of the other pilots responded simultaneously, but Harm paid them no attention as he fired his lasers on the lowest setting.  
The burst of energy hit the rock, but was not powerful enough to make it explode. Instead, the rock changed its trajectory. Harm watched it, lips moving as he encouraged it under his breath, waiting to see if he had managed to achieve the almost impossible through sheer dumb luck.  
It took a couple of seconds for the rock's new course to be completely clear. It was heading towards the shield generator.  
  
The other pilots watched, for once not thinking it necessary to break the tension with asinine banter. They flew just outside the shields, swerving every so often to avoid laser fire from the ship's defensive systems. The rock got closer and closer to the shield generator, and then.  
WHAM!  
  
Or actually, not wham. Sound doesn't travel through space. But if it had been a sci-fi movie or tv series, there would have been a wham. A loud one. Special effects tend to have loud noises associated with them, even if there shouldn't technically be any sound at all. Sparks flew around the generator. The whole thing glowed for a split second, then exploded with a blinding white light. The pilots turned their faces away, seeing even more stars than they should have. The shields went down. They were in.  
  
"Rabb said he thought some sort of Naquadriah explosion took out all the Gliders. Is it possible that could'a set these guys off?" Sam gave her commanding officer the slightly surprised expression she reserved for those rare occasions when something he said actually made sense. "That's possible, sir. We have no way of knowing whether these creatures can sense symbiotes in themselves or merely the presence of naquadah in their systems. If it's the naquadah, then any naquadriah explosion may have set them off and got them attacking anything they could sense with naquadah in its system, so all the Jaffa." "Why not you?" Sam paused for a second. "Sir, a couple of them did demonstrate slightly aggressive behaviour toward me. The fact that the other discouraged that behaviour could suggest that some of them have stronger instincts regarding actual symbiotes than others. Or that they realised whose side I was on. Given the opportunity to study their behaviour a little, I could probably find out what it is they're responding to when they attack Jaffa." Jack looked a teeny bit alarmed at this. "Define 'opportunity to study their behaviour'. Cause in case you hadn't noticed, the snakeheads know this planet is here now. They can come back. And if they decide to whoop our asses from orbit, there's not all that much we can do about it." "On the contrary, O'Neill. It is highly unlikely that if they are defeated today, the Goa'uld shall return here. The only advantage they could gain from control of this planet is access to the Furling technology reputedly left behind. If they were to launch an all-out offensive from above the planet, they would be unable to ensure that such technology was not accidentally destroyed. It is also likely that the only Goa'uld who is aware of this planet is the one currently in orbit. Such potentially valuable knowledge would not be shared by any who came into possession of it." "So what you're saying is, if Rabb and his bunch of insane jetjocks manage to take out those motherships, no-one's gonna fight us for this planet?" "That would appear the most likely outcome." "Teal'c, when have we ever not been fought for something and still had it turn out to be useful and non-deadly?"  
  
"Guys, when you're firing at this thing, could you try and not hit the bit near me? If you destroy the tractor beam generator while I'm stuck in the beam, the explosion will be directed toward me by the beam and bits of me are gonna end up decorating one of your windshields." Harm Sr, who had just found the mothership and come to join in the fun, was the first to respond, his worry clearly audible in his voice. "Then how are you gonna get out of there?" "The tractor beam's pulling me, slowly, towards the ship. If I try and fly away, the pull of the tractor beam will increase so that I can't move away. The faster I try and move, the greater the pull of the beam, and the stronger the beam, the more likely it is to pull this bird apart. But if I fly towards the ship, the beam gets confused. So it accelerates me, but only a little. As the beam narrows, the force pulling me towards the ship gets more focussed, so I speed up more. Just before I reach the ship, I should have enough momentum to pull out of the beam and get free. Someone can take out the tractor beam generator while I get away, and we can all band together and blast this thing to hell." "What do you mean by 'just before' you get to the ship?" "I mean I should have a margin of error of about half a second in starting my pull-up."  
  
As he finished speaking, Harm turned his fighter a little inside the tractor beam so that he was headed directly at the Goa'uld vessel. Then he closed his eyes for five long seconds. Mac's face smiled at him as her words rung in his ears. "A blaze of glory." Before, when she had spoken of how she wanted to die, the subject had depressed him. Had made him bring up the subject of cremation to hint to her that he didn't want to talk about death. But now, the memory of her words was comforting. They would go out together; Butch and Sundance. There was no question in his mind. If he ever died in combat, it would be with Mac at his side. Not hurtling himself into an enemy spaceship whilst Mac trod the soil of an alien planet, unaware of what was happening. He would time this right. He had to.  
  
On the planet below, Mac looked up at the sky. She didn't know what instinct drew her to look through the heavens to the stars beyond, but she knew it was important that she did so. The screams of the Jaffa ceased, and the green, furred guardians of the Furlings' treasure turned their faces upwards, to the great void beyond the blue. Mac's small friend curled itself around her ankles, its body vibrating with its comforting purr, its bear-like paws gently drumming the ground.  
  
Harm put his hand to the throttle, and gently moved it forward. The mothership moved towards him with alarming speed. He judged his distance from the ship more by eye than by his instruments, using his brain as nothing more than an organic calculator. All thoughts other than those related to judging the moment at which he should pull back on the stick were erased from his mind, an unnecessary waste of processing power. At the same moment as his mind told him the distance was right, a thousand voices screamed out inside his head. "NOW!" He pulled back. He saw the ship change from a vertical wall in front of him to a steep hill, then a gentle slope. He forced his eyes to remain open as he saw his port wingtip miss the ship's hull by less than an inch. He pulled back further, and the ship fell away beneath him. As the other F-504s began their assaults on the near-defenceless ship, Harm allowed himself to breathe.  
  
The guardians relaxed all at once, and the largest let out a great howl, in which it was joined by many of the others. Mac's saviour continued to purr, rubbing its head so strongly against her legs than Mac was knocked off balance, falling to the ground where the creature proceeded to clamber onto her chest, rubbing up against her as if its life depended on it. Overcome with relief, but not sure why, Mac brought her hands to its neck and ruffled its fur.  
  
The destruction of the third and final mothership caught Harm unawares. The explosion itself missed him, but a flying piece of metal hit his starboard wing. This in intself presented no problem, as aerodynamics aren't an issue in space, but some of the circuitry of the F-504's navigational systems were stored in the wing to save space in the main body of the craft. Rapid experimentation revealed to Harm that he would be unable to plot in a course in advance; he would have to fly the thing manually. As doing that in hyperspace could well turn out to be tantamount to suicide, that meant he would have to land on the planet below and gate home from there, rather than returning to his take-off point. But first things first. "Prometheus, this is Hammer. Goa'uld threat has been eliminated. What is your situation?" "Hammer, this is Prometheus. We've sustained battle damage, but no main systems have been compromised beyond repair. We can get home under our own steam, leave any really tricky repairs to the guys who built this thing in the first place. Most stuff we can handle ourselves; I've already got repair crews at work." "Good to know. You want an escort?" "Your guys don't have the fuel to keep up with us. We'll be fine on our own." "Have a safe trip. And next time we're all back on Earth, you guys are buying."  
  
Of the fifteen F-504s who set out from 685, only two had been lost. That was a small miracle in itself. The fact that none of the surviving fighters were damaged beyond repair erased any doubts about whether or not there was someone watching out for the men and women of the SGC.  
  
"Guys, hyperspace would tear this baby to bits if I tried to get back to 685. I'm gonna take her down here, see if we can get someone through the gate to repair her. Anyone who can get back goes back; we don't know whether we'll have long-term access to 683. Anyone else need to come down with me?" No-one answered. "Okay then. You get back to 685, give your groundcrews basic rundowns on what repairs need doing, and anyone who doesn't have duty can gate home and get something to eat that doesn't make your teeth crack. Frodo, if I'm not back before you, take care of Hammond's questions. See you stateside, boys. Rabb out."  
  
The F-504 was VSTOL capable, and so the scarcity of both runway and flat ground near the gate did not cause Harm too much of a problem. After a brief conversation with O'Neill about the best place for him to set down, he landed the fighter, performed his shut-down checks and made his way over to where the SGC personnel were clustered around the DHD. "We lose anybody?" Almost always O'Neill's first concern. He might not strike everyone as particularly personable, but he cared about the men and women he served with. "Hemlock and Masters. They took their share of Jaffa with them, though." Harm spoke softly, respecting the memory of his fallen comrades. "I'll write the letters myself." It was something he'd only had to do twice in his career, both times since joining the SGC, both times regarding F-504 pilots. Both lost in combat against an enemy superior both in numbers and in technology. O'Neill nodded. "How's the Prometheus?" "No significant damage. She's heading home, the skipper didn't mention any casualties." Harm looked around. "These the Furlings' guardians?" "Looks like it." The guardians were all watching Harm. They emitted an air of tense expectation. Despite the fact that he too was a former Goa'uld host, and had more naquadah in his system than Carter did, none of them reacted to him in the way they had to her. "Why are they staring at me?" "No idea. No idea why they do anything. No idea about them at all, in fact. Carter has a couple of theories, but that's not the same thing." "Sir, I believe the naquadriah explosion affected their behaviour in some way." "What's that got to do with them staring at me, Major?" "Perhaps they associate you with the explosion." "How would they know to do that? They didn't see me, I was thousands of feet above the planet's surface. And I'm not even sure I associate me with the explosion. I definitely didn't fire a naquadriah warhead, and I don't see how any of the others with me could have done it. Which means the Jaffa in the Gliders must have had some naquadriah with them. If they did, they would have fired it at us, not blown themselves up." He looked from Carter to Jack and back again, his meaning obvious in this glance. Unless. "Tok'Ra?" "It would make sense, Jack. Use sabotage to take out a whole fleet of Gliders, but don't lift a finger to do anything that would actually diminish a System Lord's power, then get annoyed with us when we take out three motherships and the Goa'uld in charge of them, thus 'altering the balance of power in the galaxy in a way which can only aid certain of the Goa'uld and make their regime stronger in the long run'." "And if there was a Tok'Ra spy in this Goa'uld's forces." "Then he's probably dead now," Sam spoke here, "and we need to tell the Tok'Ra." "Not to mention find out if they know anything about this place." This from Harm. His view of the Tok'Ra was the same as Jack's. With the exception of Selmak, they were simply a Goa'uld by any other name, and not to be trusted even a fraction of the distance they could be thrown.  
  
Half an hour later, they were in the briefing room at the SGC. Two teams had been left on 683 to maintain a presence there and alert the SGC if any more Jaffa turned up. The green guardians did not seem particularly bothered by their presence, ignoring them for the most part. Their primary interests among the humans seemed to be Harm and Mac, though no-one had the faintest idea why. One green creature had not remained on the planet. Mac's small saviour had appeared completely determined to remain by her side, and no-one had been either brave enough or stupid enough to attempt to discourage it. And so it sat by Mac's feet whilst General Hammond attempted to conduct something approaching a formal debriefing. "Captain, you're certain the naquadriah explosion was nothing to do with any of your men?" "As certain as I can be, sir. It's not as if you can buy a naquadriah warhead from your local hardware store. There are two of them stored on 685, and they're both still accounted for. Whatever caused that explosion was not fired by an F-504." "Respectfully, sir," this from a junior member of SG-17, "if it wasn't fired by any of us, what does it matter where the explosion came from? None of our people were killed by it; it probably saved most of our lives." "It matters, Lieutenant," there was a faintly sarcastic tone to O'Neill's voice, "because we need to know who has the capability and the resources to produce naquadriah weapons. Anyone who does, even if they're relatively unimportant, suddenly has a tactical advantage that can open big, hunkin' new doors for them." The Lieutenant nodded, duly chastised. O'Neill turned back to Hammond. "General, I hate to say this, but we really need to know whether the Tok'Ra know anything about this." "Very well. I'll arrange for a message to be sent requesting that they send Selmak to speak to us. We'll probably have to wait a while for any response, in the meantime I suggest those of you who can get cleaned up. Dismissed."  
  
"Mac, come with me. I have my own bathroom, it'll save you having to fight the other female personnel for the showers." They were beginning to file out, and Mac was looking somewhat out of her depth. "Don't you want to spend the time with your dad?" "He and Admiral Boone stayed behind to talk to Hammond. They'll be assigned SFs to show them around when they're done. Come on. In exchange, you can help me rub some lotion into my arm. The Asgard may have made it better than it was, but it's still not back to normal and hurts like hell after what I've just put it through. Come on. Unless you're afraid to be alone with me in my quarters." He flashed a toothy grin at her, and she gratefully gave in, her furry companion prowling along at her side. As Harm led the way to the elevator, she asked, "Who are the Tok'Ra?" "They're a bunch of renegade Goa'uld, but don't let them hear you call them that. They only take willing hosts, and have a long-running guerilla war against the Goa'uld." "Who'd want to take one of those things as a host?" "Dying people, for the most part. A Tok'Ra symbiote can save your life. Delay old age, cure cancer, stuff life that. Some hosts live well over two hundred years. The symbiote shares the body with the host rather than one being in control. The two have equal rights under Tok'Ra law." "Didn't sound like you and Colonel O'Neill like them very much." "Jack doesn't like them because they screw us over all the time. A bit like Webb sending us on missions without all the information." He suddenly realised that that was probably not the most tactful comparison to make seeing as how Mac had killed Webb a few hours before, and he sent her an apologetic look. "I don't like them because whatever they say, they're still Goa'uld. They treat us the same way, in many respects. As though we're inferior, or at the very least childlike. One of them took Sam Carter as a host against her will in order to survive, which shows just how deep- rooted their moral code is. And they just generally give me the creeps." They arrived at the elevator, and halted to await its arrival. By the time it arrived there was something of a crowd waiting for it, so no important conversations were held. Just some good-natured back-slapping and congratulatory handshakes. Harm and Mac didn't speak to each other again until they arrived at his quarters.  
  
"Well, here it is. Home sweet home." He threw open the door, and Mac walked in. She looked around. "And I thought your place in DC was basic. You live here all the time?" "Yeah. Some people have places off-base, and I've been known to stay over on occasion, but I don't even leave the base much. If you think the paperwork at JAG's bad you should see what I have to do, and that's not even including my translations." "What do you translate?" "I help the archaeologists with the ancient writings we come across. Most of them have at least a basis in an Earth language, so knowing as many as I do thanks to Apollo means I can be useful, especially as I know the languages the way they were spoken in conversation, not just written down or recited as poetry." He threw a towel at her. "Get in the shower. I'll have someone bring some BDUs in your size." As she disappeared into the small bathroom, Harm turned to look at the green furry creature. It had taken up residence in the middle of his bed. He sat down on the edge and ruffled its ears. "I owe you one, buddy." The creature started to purr, gazing adoringly into Harm's eyes. Harm chuckled, and ruffled its fur some more.  
  
By the time Mac got out of the shower, the two were chasing each other round Harm's bed, wrestling playfully with each other. "I leave you alone for a minute and you revert to a five-year-old." Harm looked up, a slightly guilty expression on his face, which soon changed to wonder. He had seen a sight like this before, but back then it hadn't been real. "Did you even take the time to get me those BDUs?" He shook his head, both to indicate the negative and to force his mind out of the gutter. He turned to pick up the phone by his bed, not allowing himself to stare at Mac's towel-clad figure any longer. He put in the call requesting some BDUs be sent for Mac, then he turned round to look at her once again, unable to prevent the slightly glazed look that entered his eyes. "See something you like, sailor?" He gave her a slow, playful grin. "Oh yes. Very much." She smiled back at him and re-entered the bathroom in search of another towel with which to dry her hair. Harm's hair was too short for him to bother with having a hairdryer.  
  
When the clothes had been dropped off, Harm handed them to her through the partially-open door before returning to sit on his bed, taking a bottle of lotion from his bedside cabinet. After unzipping his flight-suit most of the way and tying the sleeves around his waist, he began to gingerly apply the lotion to his left arm, rubbing it in in small circular motions. So involved did he become in what he was doing that he was startled to feel Mac's hand gently brush his aside and take over the task. "Thought this was gonna be my job?" "Well, you were taking so long primping I thought I'd better get started." "I was not primping." "If you say so." "I wasn't!" He just smiled at her in a mock-patronising way and directed her on how best to apply the lotion. When she was done, he took a brief shower and emerged clad only in boxers before taking a set of long-sleeved khakis from his wardrobe and pulling them on. Then the phone rang, and Harm leaned over Mac's friend to answer it. "We'll be right down." He turned to Mac. "Tok'Ra representative should be her in ten. We should get down there."  
  
In the briefing room, the sound of an off-world activation alarm sounded. Sam jumped to her feet and moved as if to head down to the gate room, but Harm stopped her, much to the surprise of everyone else in the room. "Stay here, Major, I'll go get whoever they sent." They had requested that Selmak be sent and, though the Tok'Ra High Council did not always accede to their requests, he had a feeling that they had done so this time. He made his way down to await the Tok'Ra's arrival. Sure enough, it was Selmak who had been sent. He smiled at Harm in greeting. "Where's Sam?" "She's in the briefing room with the others. If you could come with me, sir." Harm had to restrain himself from grabbing the older man by the elbow and dragging him off to a corner. When they were out of earshot of the SFs who guarded the gate, he placed a hand to his shoulder and gestured that he stop walking. "Harm? What's up?" "We have a serious problem."  
  
"What sort of problem?" "Two problems, really." Realisation dawned in the Tok'Ra's face. "Oh crap." Harm nodded. "How d'you wanna handle this?" "I don't know." He rubbed his right hand over his face. "I guess I should always have realised that there was a possibility this could happen, especially after you transferred here, but I never let myself think about it." He made firm eye contact with the Navy Captain. "You got any ideas?" "I was kinda hoping you would," Harm folded his arms over his chest, "And if we don't think of something quickly, they're gonna wonder why it's taking us so long to get from the gate room to the briefing room." "Oh God." "Selmak have any suggestions?" "Selmak's telling me I got myself into this mess, I can get myself out of it." Harm laughed. "Women." "You said it. This whole situation is all their fault." "Makes a change from everything being all our fault." The other man grinned. "Let's go face the music, hope I think of something on the way up. How's the arm?"  
  
"You ready?" "I'm about to reveal to two highly-trained military officers that the truths on which they've based their entire lives are, in fact, lies." "Could be worse." "How, precisely?" "I'm not sure exactly. But I'm sure I'll think of something. If it's any consolation, they don't seem to hate each other." "As far as you can tell." "When women don't like each other, you can generally tell pretty quickly. The hair flying can be a big clue." "Let's just get this over with before I chicken out, Harm." Harm shrugged, grinning. "Your funeral." "I know."  
  
With that, the two men climbed the last part of the spiral staircase up into the briefing room, neither man completely certain of what their welcome would be.  
  
Harm seemed to Mac to practically sprint across the room to sit next to her when he returned with the Tok'Ra representative. He also, whether by design or not, kept himself squarely in her line of sight, preventing her from seeing the man who accompanied him until Harm had sat down. And for some reason, before sitting down he had placed his hand on her shoulder, as if to keep her in her seat. Which of course was his intention, as Mac realised when she got a good look at the man dressed in the peculiar Tok'Ra clothing. Completely flabbergasted, but aware that Harm for some reason didn't want her to react visibly, she turned her eyes to Harm's, seeking both confirmation of what she was seeing and an explanation of it. He gave her a nod so small as to be almost invisible, and his jaw tightened slightly. Her eyes were not deceiving her.  
  
General Jacob Carter, USAF, also known as Colonel Matt O'Hara, USMC, forced himself not to let his gaze dwell on his neice. At the same time, he found himself completely unable to spare his daughter a glance. Business first, incredibly convoluted family matters later. He turned to his old friend George Hammond, and let Selmak take over. "How can the Tok'Ra be of aid to the Tau'ri?" Hammond nodded to Jack, as the leader of the forces on 683, to speak. "We were just on PV8 683. Don't know if you guys have a name for it. We're pretty certain it's the place where the Furlings left a record of all their technology and stuff. So while SG-11's taking a look around, thinking they've found signs that say there's an archive of something somewhere around, not knowing yet exactly what it was they'd found, a bunch of Jaffa appear out of nowhere and try to kill them. As do three motherships and a whole lotta Gliders. Now when Rabb and his guys started shooting down Gliders, there's this huge explosion which we think was naquadriah. We want to know what Goa'uld might have had access to that stuff, and where they got it from." "What makes you think the Tok'Ra know anything?" "The explosion started among the Gliders, it was nothing to do with our guys. Which means someone on the other side blew up the Jaffa. Now as no Goa'uld's quite that dumb, we were thinking Tok'Ra spy taking the opportunity to get rid of a bunch of Gliders and make it look like we did it." Selmak nodded sagely. "That sounds like the sort of thing Ghostrider would do." "Ghostrider?" "Ghostrider's a relatively new recruit to the Tok'Ra. Her real name is Saragil. Her host, Rosieg, lost a brother to Death Gliders, so they like to infiltrate Death Glider squadrons and cause trouble." "How'd they get hold of the naquadriah?" "Probably from the stockload of the Goa'uld whose forces they infiltrated." "Any idea on which Goa'uld?" "Because of our limited numbers, we don't have an operative in every significant Goa'uld's service any more, so we have no idea how far general knowledge of naquadriah has spread. Having three motherships limits it a bit, though. Could be one of a few. Off the top of my head, I'd suggest V'Akhdar. Swiatek has the resources, but doesn't use Gliders much, and K'Bugd is sometimes called "The Shady One" because he never has more than two of his vessels in company so that no-one can calculate the extent of his forces. Susipan'ter may have the naquadriah but invariably avoids conflict unless he has absolutely no choice. Same with Josbo'on and Ja'Wes." Jack's eyes had begun to glaze over. "Uh, we didn't really need that much detail. Just a suggestion." The oldest and wisest of the Tok'Ra smiled. "You're always complaining we never tell you anything unless we directly ask you, Jack." "Whatever. Who do you think we killed, and do we have to worry about anyone coming to kick our asses in revenge?" "I'd put my money on V'Akhdar. If it was him, you have nothing to worry about. Three motherships is probably all he had, and he was probably on one of them. He would never share technology or the location of raw materials, so anything he knew dies with him. But you didn't call me halfway across the galaxy just to ask me that." Harm leaned forward, glad that Mac's saviour had seemed content to remain in Harm's quarters. "The Jaffa on the ground were all killed by creatures that match the stories about the Furlings' Guardians." The Tok'Ra stared at him. "You're not serious." "Completely. There's one of them in my quarters at the moment. I'd say you could come and take a look, but that might not be a good idea after what they did to the Jaffa." "What exactly did they do?" "You don't wanna know. Do the Tok'Ra have any information on them other than the old stories?" "No. We'd assumed they were a myth made up to keep the Goa'uld from looking for Furling treasure." "They're real. The Tok'Ra probably want to keep away from that planet." "I'll recommend that to the High Council. They'll want you to share anything you find out about these creatures with the Tok'Ra. Something which kills all symbiotes indiscriminately is something we need to know about. I know, I know," he held up his hand to stave off Jack's interruption, "The Tok'Ra never share information like that with you. I'm just telling you what the High Council will say. I don't agree with them, but there's not much I can do about their attitude." "There's nothing else you can tell us, Jacob?" This from Hammond. Mac shot another look at Harm, even more confused than she had been. She had rationalised her uncle's presence by assuming he had become ill and joined the Tok'Ra, without telling her for fear of worrying her. She had assumed Harm wanted her to be quiet so that they could get on with the meeting. But if the General knew him as Jacob, there must be something strange going on. "Sorry, George. We don't have the numbers we used to, and even if we did, stories about creatures left behind by the Furlings have never been a high priority. It's not like they're gonna be on our side." "Very well. Okay people, I think we're done here. Dismissed." Muted conversations broke out as people got to their feet. Harm grabbed Jack by the arm and muttered something into his ear. Jack gave a short nod, having a vague idea of what was going on, then invited Boone and Harm Sr to go to the commissary with him to get something to eat. Both men, after glancing at Harm and seeing the expression on his face, agreed.  
  
It was not long before the only people left in the room were Harm, Mac, Sam and the man known to Sam as 'Dad', to Mac as 'Uncle Matt' and to Harm as 'Woah, this is complicated'."  
  
"Dad? What's up?" Mac, who had picked up a glass of water in an attempt to control the shaking of her hand, choked, causing Harm to take the glass from her and hit her on the back as water spewed over the table. The other man sighed. "I was hoping this would never happen. Sam, Sarah, you should both sit down. This could take some time." "You want me to go?" Harm knew the content of the conversation which was about to happen, and wasn't certain that his presence would be beneficial. Mac thought different. "Don't go, Harm." He looked over at the other man, who shrugged. "I have no problem with you being here. Sarah might need a friend." Sam was looking very confused by now, looking between Mac and her father. "Dad?" "I guess this is it." He looked from his daughter to his niece and back again. "It's time you both heard the story of my life."  
  
"I was born in a small town in Arizona. My name was Matthew O'Hara, and I had a younger sister called Deanna. Your mother, Sarah. I always wanted to go into the military, with no particular preference for any branch. When I was eighteen I went to college on a football scholarship, and it was there that I was recruited by the CIA. "Under orders from my superiors, I joined the Marine ROTC at my college, and when I got out I was commissioned into the Marines and trained as a helicopter pilot. I also, as a result of CIA intervention, received some special forces training, which would come in useful on CIA-led missions. "When I got to Vietnam, things started to change. Someone at the CIA decided they needed another operative inside the Air Force. I had just finished a tour when they decided this, and they chose me to be the operative. They gave me a crash course in the differences between the Marines and the Air Force, then arranged my identity as First Lieutenant Jacob Carter, USAF. For the rest of the Vietnam war I alternated tours between the Air Force and the Marines. I only got a few days off a year, and didn't get a chance to go the whole way home at all. During that time, my sister met and fell in love with a Marine named Joe MacKenzie. They got married before I even knew Deanna had a boyfriend. "As it happened, I got promoted faster in the Air Force than in the Marines, despite being a Marine first. But I got a Medal of Honor as a Marine. Because of that, when I got home from Nam the Company expected me to maintain both identities. That meant I got very little time to visit my sister and her baby daughter, especially when, as Jacob Carter, I met and fell in love with Sam's mother. "When I got married, everything got even more complicated. Maintaining two identities kept me away from home even more than most military officers, and the fact that I now had a family as both men meant I couldn't just ask the Agency to kill one of me off, because there was no way to avoid hurting someone I cared about. So I only saw my sister's family for a day or two a year, and because of this Deanna was able to hide most of the signs of her husband's abuse from me. Sarah, I swear to God, if I'd had a better idea of what was going on I'd have gotten you out of that house and brought you back to raise with my own kids."  
  
Sam and Mac, who had until now been staring avidly at Jacob/Matt, turned to look at each other, mild curiosity filling both their eyes. They were wondering what it would have been like to be raised together. Harm couldn't help but wonder, as he had done ever since he had been introduced to the Tok'Ra operative and then found out what was going on, how different his life would have been if Mac had gone to live with her uncle's family. She could have been spared a lot of pain, but would she be the same person he knew and loved? Would they ever even have met?  
  
"As it was, I didn't get to see my kids that much while they were growing up, and Mark still resents me for that, especially since he blames me for his mother's death. After she died I needed to get away from it all for a while, and it was then that I found out about what had happened to Sarah and her car accident, and took her up to Red Rock Mesa. "After that, things stayed the same for a few years. With Sarah, Sam and Mark grown up, it was easier to maintain the two identities side-by-side. Mark did everything he could to avoid me, Sarah joined the Marines, and Sam went into the Air Force. Eventually I retired from the Marines, and for the most part I was just Jacob Carter for a few years, except for the occasional visit to Sarah as her Uncle Matt. Then the CIA got back to me, and asked me to investigate a dissident group who felt that the US Government was corrupt and that the people should exercise their right to remove it and institute a new one. I somehow rose to be head of the group, but was ordered to maintain the façade and take the opportunity to test some younger CIA operatives by seeing if they could catch my group. "My men and I stole the Declaration of Independence. I was in my persona as Colonel Matt O'Hara, so the CIA agent in charge got Sarah, a JAG lawyer by this time, assigned to the case. Agent Webb himself didn't do at all well in finding me, but his superiors were impressed by his thinking in getting Sarah involved. Sarah and Harm managed to find me and get me to turn myself in, then Harm defended me in my Court Martial. The Court Martial was rigged so that I would be sent to Leavenworth, thus getting Matt O'Hara out of the picture for a few years. I've already apologised to Harm about that. "Then I resumed my life as Jacob Carter for a while before I learned, just before Sam was to be awarded the Air Medal, that I had cancer. I made some calls to get her into NASA, which was always her dream, hoping we could become close before I died. I was hurt when Sam refused the transfer, because at that time I didn't understand why. Then not long after, Sam and George turn up at the hospital offering me the chance to get a snake put in my head and save my life. I agreed, not certain what I was getting myself into, and ever since I've been part of the Tok'Ra, host to Selmak, fighting a war of attrition against an enemy far more powerful than my side. "I let myself get lost in the role of Jacob Carter to the extent that I didn't really think about what would happen to Sarah if she learned I wasn't in Leavenworth, or if the time of my release came around and she never saw me. Then one day I see Harm at the SGC and he fills me in on everything that's happened to Sarah in the last few years, and I started feeling guilty but realised there was nothing I could do about it. Until today. And here we are."  
  
The two women stared at him. Harm became uncomfortably aware of the possibility that Mac would try and kill him for concealing this from her.  
  
The man whose birth certificate said Matthew O'Hara stood equidistant from his niece and his daughter, waiting for the explosion.  
  
He did not have long to wait.  
  
Sam took the first shot, but initially exploded with quiet cold, rather than noisy heat. "You lied to me? My whole god-damn life you lied to me?" "Sam." "MY ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE?!" There went the heat. "You never even told Mom the truth? She died believing you were someone you weren't?" That, in Sam's eyes, was the true betrayal. She understood what he had done to some extent. He was doing his duty for his country, even if she didn't like the way he had gone about it. But her mother had died because her father was late picking her up from the airport and she had taken a taxi. The fact that he had been lying to her from the moment they met just made him even more guilty in that regard. "I never pretended to be a person I wasn't. I just used two names for one person." "Jacob Carter's an only child. Married with children. So how come Matthew O'Hara's got a sister and a niece, and isn't married?" "And how come I never had any relations who could have gotten me away from my parents? Gotten me away from my Dad after Mom left?" This from Mac. "Were you ashamed of the family you were born into or something? You could have got me away from my parents when I was still little. It's not like either of them would have cared." Harm had seen Mac do a lot of cross-examinations. But he had never seen her, angry, do one in a tag-team format with another pissed-off woman. He began to pray that they wouldn't move their focus to him before they'd had time to cool off. Sam took over again. "And you're not even telling us the truth voluntarily. If Colonel MacKenzie hadn't ended up here today we'd both have gone through life believing a lie." "And I'd never have seen you again," Mac added, "If you don't spend much time on the planet, you wouldn't have any excuse not to spend it with Major Carter and her brother." Sam turned her head to look at Mac. "Ma'am, if it's all right with you, I think under the circumstances using each other's ranks sounds stupid." "Damn straight." Mac hadn't taken her eyes off her uncle. "So what was supposed to happen when you got out of Leavenworth?" "I told you. I hadn't thought that far ahead." "Come on, Dad, you may be a liar but you're not stupid. You couldn't have pulled this off for so long if you didn't know how to plan ahead." Mac and Sam, far from initiating a cat-fight with each other as Harm had feared, were presenting a united front against Matt/Jacob. Harm smiled inwardly. He would never learn to predict exactly how Mac would react to something. Women. "I guess I thought I could write to Sarah then 'retire abroad' or something, and die not long after." Both women were incensed by this. "You'd let me think you were dead?" "I very nearly was dead, Sarah. If it wasn't for Selmak I'd have died years ago." "But you're not dead, and you're not gonna die. You're probably going to outlive both of us. Don't I deserve better than to be handed the flag at your closed-casket funeral after not having seen you since your trial?" "Look, both of you, I never meant to hurt you. When I first got into this, I was young and just following orders. By the time I had two families to factor into this, there was no way out, so I tried to manage it so that you'd never meet. I thought that what you didn't know couldn't hurt you." "But it did hurt us, Dad. I grew up with a father who was never there, and it sounds to me like you let Sarah live through hell because you didn't see her often enough to get a real idea of what her father was like." "You think I don't know that? That I don't beat myself up about that? I realise that I didn't handle it the way I should have. I realise that what I did to stop you getting hurt hurt you more than the truth ever could have. But it's too late to change any of that now. I'm truly sorry, and I'm asking for forgiveness. From both of you." There was a moment's silence as the two cousins exchanged loaded glances. Then they spoke together. "That's gonna take some time." "I can accept that. I don't deserve immediate forgiveness. And I know this will change everything between us forever. But I'd like to think some good can come of this now that you both know the truth." Neither woman gave him any sort of verbal response, but both gave slight nods.  
Then Mac turned to look at Harm. He saw the look in her eyes and swallowed, nervously. He had a pretty good idea of what was to come, and his nervousness increased when Sam, too, turned her attention to him, while Selmak slipped away, aware that neither his niece nor his daughter was thinking very charitable thoughts about him at that time.  
Mac spoke.  
"You knew about this?"  
  
"Well, when I first saw him, I was kinda confused, and he saw me and recognised that, so first chance I got I took him aside and asked him what the hell was going on."  
"In other words, you knew about this."  
"Yes."  
"And you didn't tell me?"  
"What was I supposed to do? Turn up at JAG and say 'Hey, Mac, I know we're not on speaking terms, but I thought you should know your uncle isn't in Leavenworth but has an alter-ego who's an Air Force General and shares his brain with a snake-like alien involved in an inter-stellar guerilla war against a bunch of other aliens who think they're gods'? Can you honestly tell me you'd have been prepared to listen to me?"  
"You could have told me, though." This from Sam.  
"Hey come on. It's not like we're on the same team and your business is my business. Your family is none of my concern. I couldn't exactly go up to you and say, 'By the way, your Dad's real name is Matt O'Hara, he's a Marine assigned to the Air Force by the CIA and I used to work with his niece, who must be your cousin'."  
Sam had no real response to that. Mac was seething with anger. "Why do you always make everything seem so rational? I had a right to know."  
"And your uncle had a right to tell you in his own way. It's his life."  
"It's Sam's life and my life too. And you heard him, he wasn't even going to tell us."  
"That's his prerogative, Mac. We weren't even friends after Paraguay. It wasn't my place to interfere."  
"Okay, I can accept you wouldn't be comfortable telling me. But you should have told Sam. It might not have been any of your business, but it wasn't your place to decide to withhold the truth from her. You're a lawyer, for God's sake. The truth is everything to you. And if you didn't have the guts to tell her yourself, you should have persuaded Uncle Matt to tell her. You got him to turn himself in at Red Rock Mesa."  
"At Red Rock Mesa, him getting caught was part of the plan, and I was the guy who was going out on a limb for someone he'd only just met. A few months ago, I would have been the guy who worked with his niece for seven years and then vanished without even saying goodbye or staying in contact."  
Harm was being maddeningly calm about this. His tone of voice was similar to that he used when Mac had first accused him of sandbagging her in court. And at that memory, all her anger at Harm drained out of her, to be focussed more sharply on her now-absent uncle.  
"Whatever, Harm. Let's go see what our furry friend's done to your quarters. Sam, you wanna come?"  
"I don't want to intrude. I've got some work I can do in my lab. Colonel O'Neill will come by in a while to bug me, take my mind off things."  
Harm supressed a grin at that. O'Neill's habit of loitering in Carter's lab, fiddling with her 'doohickeys' and trying to persuade her to go fishing with him was a frequent topic of conversation on the base. Especially with the rumours, of unknown source, which had started flying around after the whole Zatarc incident.  
  
In the commissary, Harm Sr and Boone were regailing the SGC personnel with tall tales of missions they had flown over Nam. For every story they told, one of the Special Forces men nearby would chip in with a story of their own from before they came to the SGC. An unspoken agreement prevented people from trying to use Stargate missions in the good-natured game of one- upmanship.  
The discussion remained light-hearted until Jack was prevailed upon to talk about the mission that landed him in an Iraqi prison for three months. Even with the details glossed over, the tale was sombre enough to subdue some of the high spirits.  
Even so, the pair of Navy fliers were turned to to beat the story. Harm and Mac, stopping by in search of coffee, stood unseen at the back of the crowd as Hammer and Tong began the story of their final mission together.  
Harm knew bits of the story already, some gleaned from the report he had gotten hold of through the Freedom of Information Act, some from Boone's own mouth. But apart from a vague idea he had got from his father's old interrogator, he had never heard what had happened to his father after he had been shot down.  
He listened without emotion to the account. His initial days in the Vietnamese prison camp. His journey to Russia and his early interrogations. The bond of friendship which developed between him and the man who should have been his nemesis, a bond forged in adversity between two men on the ground whose hearts were in the air. His years spent in Russian mines, and the mining accident. His desperate plea to Victor to tell his wife and son that he was still alive, and his last few days in captivity. Then his escape, and his life with the two young Russian siblings. Nothing had evoked any emotion in Harm. He was in a state of complete catharsis, a fact which made the Apollonic part of him laugh.  
~Your father's life is a Greek Tragedy, then? Creating a state of emotional catharsis was what the Tradegians strove for, and they did it through evoking pity and fear, then destroying the character for whom the audience feared. Do you see your father as a broken man, Tau'ri? Because he looks exactly like you. Are you broken, Tau'ri?~  
~That would be you. I broke you, Snake, don't forget that.~  
He forced the ghost of Apollo out of the way in time to hear one of the SG-3 Marines attempt to break the tense silence which followed Harm Sr's description of his rescue.  
"Did you and the girl ever. you know."  
Harm Sr smiled sadly. "She was a beautiful girl, and I was a long way from home." Harm expected him to end there, but he didn't. "I can't deny I was tempted. I'd given up hope of ever getting home, and expected to live out my life in hiding in Siberia." He shrugged. "But she wasn't Trish, and I could never fool myself into thinking she was. So no. I never slept with her."  
  
Mac felt Harm tense beside her. For a split second his body became completely rigid. Then, without saying a word, he turned and walked away, his long strides betraying his supressed emotions, and Mac had to practically run to keep up with him.  
By the time he reached the elevator he was practically running. People in the corridor who saw him coming ducked out of the way; in the SGC being able to tell when to avoid people was a crucial survival skill. Mac slipped through the doors behind him, half expecting him to collapse against the wall and let the tension start to drain out. But Harm kept his emotions tightly reined in until he ran his keycard through the lock on his quarters and walked in, slamming the door as soon as Mac had joined him.  
Then, just as he had after his little venting session in the Admiral's office the previous week, he collapsed to the floor as his body shook with violent tremors.  
Only this time it was Mac, not Sturgis, who came to his side, offering a degree of comfort he could never have received from his old friend.  
The familiar voice of Apollo screamed in his mind, but he couldn't make out the words. The screams barely even registered in his conscious mind. All he could really feel was the warmth down his side where Mac had sat down next to him; the feel of her two hands holding his larger one, gently soothing him, calming the tremors as she murmured words of comfort.  
He felt hot tears on his cheeks, streaming out of his closed eyes, and reached up with his free, injured hand to wipe them away. But before his hand reached his face he felt something like warm sandpaper do the work for him, and opened his eyes to stare into those of Mac's saviour, who was now his too.  
  
He was not sure when or how they moved to the bed, or when he fell asleep, but a few hours later he awoke to find himself lying on top of the covers, the furry guardian curled up to his left, Mac snuggled against his right side. He felt her stir as he woke, and turned his head to look at her. She smiled softly up at him.  
"Hey."  
He smiled back, not finding it as difficult as he expected. "Hey."  
Silence fell for a few minutes, before Mac once more broke the silence.  
"I don't think he was lying."  
"Who? My dad?"  
"Sergei."  
"Why would my dad lie about something like that? He didn't know I was listening."  
"I don't think your dad lied either. I could hear it in his voice, he was telling the truth. He never slept with her. No self-respecting fighter jock would have admitted to spending two years with a beautiful younger woman and never sleeping with her."  
He smiled slightly at that. "Then how can Sergei have been telling the truth?"  
"I didn't say he was telling the truth. I said he wasn't lying."  
"That's semantics, counsellor."  
"No it's not. Telling the truth is saying something that's true. Lying is deliberate falsifying. If you say something that isn't true, but which you've been taught to believe is true, then you're not lying, but you're not telling the truth either."  
"So Sergei really thinks he's my brother?"  
"I think so."  
"Then what the hell's going on, Mac?"  
"I don't know, Harm. But there are some really smart people around here. I'm sure between us we can figure it out. For now, there's nothing you can do about it. Try not to think about it too much."  
"How can I not think about it? I just lost a brother. Ironically, the same day I got my father back."  
"Harm, Sergei thinks he's the son of Harmon Rabb Sr. He probably grew up being told that by his mother. The fact that he's not biologically his son doesn't mean that in his mind he's any less your father's son."  
"I guess. Mac?"  
"What?"  
"I think Sergei was raised to think I was his brother for a reason."  
"You think his mother was raped, and she didn't want her son dealing with that burden?"  
"No, I mean like as part of some big plan."  
"That sounds like paranoia, Harm."  
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me. And I don't mean necessarily in a bad way."  
"What do you mean, then?"  
"I don't know. But I get the feeling some people, especially the Asgard, know more about me than they're letting on. They've even got a special name for me."  
"I thought I heard Freyr call you some weird. Something-Near."  
"Mjolnir. Kinda fitting, but I don't see why they started calling me that. They think O'Neill's important, but they don't have a special name for him."  
"Why's it fitting?"  
"Mjolnir was the war-hammer forged for Thor, Norse God of Thunder, by dwarves, which became his chosen weapon. Norse legend says that according to prophecy he will wield it at Ragnarok, the final battle between good and evil."  
"So now you're not just Hammer, you're Thor's Hammer."  
"That's the general idea. I don't see what that has to do with Sergei though."  
Harm sighed. Apollo was slowly beginning to make himself heard. He wasn't screaming now. He was just laughing. The laughter sounded like the buzzing of a demented bee; it gnawed at Harm's skull. And for some reason, it made him even more certain that he was onto something.  
"Neither do I. But everything's coming together now, Mac. My life at JAG has merged with my life at the SGC. I've got my father back. You've learned the truth about your uncle. We've eliminated a Goa'uld Ashrak with access to high-level government secrets. I've learned that the guy I thought was my half-brother isn't what he seems. We've seemingly made friends with the guardians left behind by the Furlings, and have a good idea of where the treasure they're guarding is. And even if we haven't completely sorted things out between us, I feel closer to you than I ever have before."  
"And all this means?"  
"Something's coming, Mac. I can feel it. Something big. Everything's slotting together so that I'm in a position to deal with it. And as arrogant as it might sound, I think I'm the only person who can deal with it."  
Mac nodded slowly. "I think you may be right."  
  
That night, as Mac lay in Harm's arms, she had a vision.  
  
Before her lay a grey, rocky wasteland. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but stone, stone and more stone. Nothing lived in that place; no grass, no shurbs, not even the tiniest of insects. No birds flew in the sky. If ever someone had designed a place to symbolise the feeling of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, the design would have looked exactly like that place.  
Above the grey stone hung a grey sky. No stars speckled it; no small, fluffy clouds wafted about the ether. The atmosphere was heavy; the sky was like a malevolent presence rather than a source of life-giving oxygen. It oozed menace, menace which seemed to loom over her like a shadowy figure in the night.  
But then the scene began to change. A figure appeared, chained to a rock in front of her. She walked forward, dread consuming her yet not overpowering her curiosity.  
The figure was Harm. He lay spreadeagled like a torture victim chained to a rack, and blood flowed out of him. There were no visible cuts on his body; the blood seeped through the pores of his skin, running away in fine rivulets to pool on the cold surface of the stone.  
Harm's eyes bored into hers.  
"sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo."  
As he closed his mouth, his blood was soaked into the stone beneath him, leaving not so much as a stain. And as the life drained out of his eyes, the sky began to grow pale. A sliver of light carved the land in half as a river formed. Greenery sprang from the rocks, and roses of all colour burst forth from the ground. The vegetation grew rapidly, and soon Harm's body was covered by natural finery of sorts Mac had never even imagined could grow.  
When he was completely blocked from her sight, Mac felt terror well up within her as a piercing wail filled the now beautiful land.  
  
She woke up in a cold sweat, panting as if she had just run a marathon. Her sudden movement awoke Harm, and his arms tightened their grip on her.  
"Mac? What's wrong?"  
"I had a dream. I think it was a vision."  
"Bad?" Concern filled his voice, and Mac felt tears fill her eyes.  
She described the dream to him, and then fell silent, waiting for him to comfort her further. He sighed deeply.  
"Looks like we were right."  
"What?"  
"Think about this, Mac. You didn't see anyone else on that rock. You didn't see an indistinct figure. You saw me. That has to mean something. We figured there's something coming that only I can deal with. This vision makes it look like that's not far from the truth."  
"You died, Harm."  
He swallowed. "So you said." He gave a forced laugh. "It would be an interesting way to go."  
"Don't even try to joke about this, Harm."  
"Mac, things in your visions tend to symbolise things. Perhaps I don't die. Perhaps your vision of me dying is something to do with giving my all. Don't worry too much about it."  
"You wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen the vision."  
"Mac," he brought her face round so that he was looking at it, and gently hooked her hair behind her ear, "There's nothing I can do about that right now. But if you've seen this, we're forewarned. Perhaps when the time comes we can find a way to stop it from happening. I don't think you'd have a vision like that if there was nothing you could do about it."  
"I guess." She pushed herself more firmly into his embrace. On Harm's other side, the furry creature made a strange, happy-sounding whistle in its sleep, from which Mac took comfort. She allowed herself to drop off to sleep.  
Harm, however, was by now completely alert. He knew Mac's knowledge of Latin was limited, and that she had not understood the words he had said in his vision.  
But he knew full well what they meant.  
sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo.  
  
By my blood, I shall give life to you all.  
  
A new work day was beginning in Falls Church, Virginia. As might be expected given the events of the previous one, it was not entirely typical. None of the senior staff were in yet. The faint bloodstain on the floor was all that remained as a silent testament to the shooting. There was no police tape, nothing had been cleared away from the area, there was no sign of the police or NCIS having gone over everything with a fine-tooth comb. That was not too surprising, given that there was no doubt who had shot the Captain and whose weapon he had used to do it, but the JAG personnel would have expected something to be out of the ordinary. Remembering nothing following the shooting between the Admiral ordering Ops cleared and getting to the elevator, the Robertses were the first remotely senior people to arrive, and were astonished to find that no-one appeared to know what was going on. They had expected the Admiral or Commander Turner to call them the night before and update them on Harm's condition, but that had never happened. They had assumed it was just because they didn't want to say anything before the doctors were certain of the prognosis. Like the seasoned investigator he was, Bud Roberts got down to business. "Coates, call Bethesda. I want to know if Captain Rabb was admitted there yesterday. If he wasn't, like he asked not to be, check every other hospital he could possibly have been taken to. I want an update on his condition. Lieutenant Simms, you and some others focus on calling the Admiral. Try his cel first, then call around and try and find out where he is. Call in favours if you have to, it's not like him to be this late and there's got to be a reason for it." "That won't be necessary, Lieutenant." Despite knowing whose voice they heard, most people looked up half expecting to see the Admiral. Instead, they saw the owner of the voice, Commander Turner. "Sir? Do you know what's going on, sir?" "Listen up people, I'm only going to say this once." What little activity had been going on abruptly ceased. "Captain Rabb is out of danger, but is not in a condition to receive visitors. I'll let you know more when I can. It turns out the man who shot him is suffering from some sort of mental imbalance resulting from over-exposure to some form of foreign substance, we're not entirely certain what it consists of. As you've probably heard, and Air Force officer was stabbed at the Pentagon not long after the Captain was shot, by a person suffering a more severe version of the same imbalance. He was killed before he could harm anyone else. The Admiral is currently in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs to discuss the potential ramifications of this situation. Colonel MacKenzie is with Captain Rabb, and I would ask that you not attempt to contact her. I'll be acting JAG for the day, anyone has any further questions they can address them to me in private. Now we didn't get much work done yesterday, so I'm sure you all have things you could be doing. Get to it, people." Sturgis' speech would have made any spin doctor cry tears of happiness. He had said nothing which was not true, but had given an impression of events which was almost as far from the truth as it was possible to be. As Sturgis had expected, Bud followed him into the Admiral's office while everyone else busied themselves. "Sir? Is Harm gonna be okay?" "That remains to be seen, Lieutenant. He's taken a lot of hits lately, both physical and emotional. For all we know what happened yesterday could have been the last straw." Of course, Bud had no idea of what had happened the previous day after he had gone home. And Sturgis fully agreed with Jack O'Neill's assessment of its being too risky to let a Trekkie know anything about Earth having made alien contact. "Is there anything Harriet and I can do?" "Not at the moment, but if anything comes up you'll be the first to know." "Thankyou, sir. Do you have any idea when the Admiral's going to be back?" "I'd be surprised if we saw him at all today. Apparently this mental imbalance problem could pose a severe security risk, they need to know whether the man they took down yesterday had had the opportunity to compromise this country's defences." "What sort of information would this guy have access to?" "He was a CIA agent. With top-level clearance." "Someone like that getting a mental imbalance would be like Mr Webb forgetting all his training." Sturgis allowed the silence following Bud's words to become significant, giving Bud a pointed stare. He hadn't wanted to announce it in the bullpen, but the man's identity couldn't be kept secret forever. People would wonder why Webb wasn't coming round to harass the Colonel. "Sir, it wasn't.?" "It was. Apparently he'd been like that for a while. But no-one noticed." He sighed. "Don't broadcast this to the staff. Feelings about Webb are mixed enough around here as it is. We start making him out to be a crazy traitor no-one will get any work done ever." "Aye aye sir. No-one'll hear anything from me." "I'm sure they won't, Bud. Dismissed, Lieutenant." "Aye aye, sir."  
  
Bud left the office deep in stunned thought. There had been something wrong with Mr Webb, but no-one had noticed. How had no-one noticed? Bud thought back over the last year. Mr Webb had been acting a bit weird, he guessed. He'd been more helpful. They'd assumed he was just trying to impress the Colonel. Waitasec. Webb had met the Colonel the same day Bud and Harm did. And he'd waited all that time to make a move? Okay, in some ways so had Harm, but Bud was more observant than some people gave him credit for. The Commander, now the Captain, had never made an real secret of how he felt about the Colonel. The Colonel had just never noticed. Webb, however, had changed. Suddenly. Round about Paraguay. Oh God. Webb had been exposed to this thing months ago. The amount of damage he could have done in that time.  
  
"Sirs, with all due respect, why was I never informed of the existence of the SGC? Legal issues with the Marines on base could well have caused problems for my office." "Admiral, tight security has almost been one of the most important issues for the SGC. The more people who know a secret, the less of a secret it is. The few senior Air Force JAG officers who are aware of the Stargate's existence have handled any legal matters for the entire command over the last few years, including those relating to Marine personnel. When the opportunity arose to transfer Harmon Rabb into the SGC, we had a Naval JAG officer on site. There was no reason for your office to be informed; the man was senior enough and experienced enough to be running his own JAG office, he didn't need your people looking over his shoulder, and he dealt with legal matters admirably. And given the close-knit nature of the SGC, the base has far fewer disciplinary problems than one might expect in a mixed command. Matters relating to interstellar law could be handled by Rabb in conjunction with our diplomats and a handful of Air Force JAGs. So Navy JAG had no need to know." The Secnav had no reason not to be happy with the situation. At the first possible opportunity after his appointment, Rabb's transfer to the SGC had increased the Department of the Navy's influence within the SGC and in interstellar affairs. The entire situation had worked completely to the man's benefit. Chegwidden resolved to control his resentment. After all, the Air Force was in the vast majority in the SGC, though with the gradual increase in the number of SEALs and Marines, the difference would probably become less pronounced over time. "Admiral," the Chairman chose to address him now, "Your office has had a great deal of contact with Mr Webb since the time the Goa'uld claimed to have increased his control over the man's actions. Have you any idea how much information this Ashrak could have gained through the man, either about general matters concerning the nation and intelligence or about JAG affairs in particular?" "Webb never got involved in the minutae of JAG business, though I would never have put it past him to bug our offices if he thought it might turn out to his advantage. As to more general matters, you'd have to ask the CIA." And uncomfortable silence fell. "The CIA doesn't know about the SGC?" There was disbelief in Chegwidden's voice. "The SGC is and always has been a military operation. The CIA would be out of their depth if they tried to get involved. It's bad enough having the NID poking their noses in all the time and causing trouble. The NID have nearly destroyed this planet through meddling in what they didn't really understand far more than any of our individual teams have, and the teams go through the gate on a weekly basis. Can you imagine all that could go wrong if the CIA were allowed to stick their noses in?" Chegwidden nodded. There was a long list in his head of times when the CIA would have completely ruined their own operations were it not for the actions of his own staff, who weren't even trained in intelligence gathering techniques. It made him wonder what CIA agents were actually taught during their training. The meeting continued with worst-case scenarios being bandied around, while the Chiefs at the same time tried to assimilate into their thinking some discoveries which were apparently made the previous night. He soon became lost when the pair of Air Force Majors there to brief them on known Goa'uld forces, locations and political leanings started using technical jargon which was apparently derived from a language other than those English technical jargon was derived from. Rabb's name came up frequently, and even Mac's once or twice, but he had no intention of interrupting simply to show that he had no idea what was going on. He would find out what Rabb and MacKenzie had been up to later. Rabb and MacKenzie. Just thinking those two names together brought back old times. Old times which AJ knew full well were now completely over.  
  
In Colorado, Harm roused Mac and dragged her down to the Commissary to introduce her to what the United States Air Force called 'breakfast'. It wasn't half bad, but the place catered to teams returning from other planets at all hours of the day and night with varying amounts of the interstellar equivalent of jet-lag, where the body hadn't even had a long plane-journey to start adapting to the change in time-zones. As a result, the food offered for breakfast would pass for lunch or dinner anywhere else, but with some breakfasty elements thrown in for those who didn't have jet-lag. Mac ate with an impressive appetite. The Marines of SG-3 looked on with approval. She might be a woman, but she had proven herself to them as a Marine with her actions under fire the previous day, and now even more so with her actions in the presence of chow. Much to Mac's surprise, Harm also seemed to eat a great deal. What she didn't notice, however, was that he was passing a lot of his food to their furry friend, which ate anything offered to it indiscriminately. Harm ate a couple of sausages himself, being under doctor's orders to keep his strength up and fully aware of which person on the base knew best how to inflict pain, but for the most part kept to his rabbit-food.  
  
When they had finished eating, Harm took Mac back to his quarters. He settled down on the single chair which graced his bedroom while she curled up on his bed. Harm picked up his guitar and ran his fingers gently over the strings. He hadn't been able to play for a while. With his arm still not one hundred percent, he probably should have left it that way, but he wanted to play for Mac. So he did.  
  
It was not the most romantic of tales, but Harm sang it with a haunting voice that kept Mac hanging onto his every word, though she had not the faintest idea what it was he was singing. Their meaning rolled around in Harm's head, offering a faint taunt to Apollo, who chose to remain silent. ~Sing, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles.~  
  
He sang for a long time. Even Mac lost track of the minutes as he sang. There was something about the sound of the words which resounded in the soul, even if you couldn't understand their meaning. As he came to a break in the tale, a knock sounded at the door.  
  
Harm laid his fingers over the strings, quieting them. "Enter." There were two people it could be, based on the way the hair was rising on the back of his neck. He made a silent bet with himself. The door opened. "Morning sir. Morning, ma'am." He smiled inwardly. He'd won.  
  
Sam was nervous. The previous night, she had been so filled with resentment at her father that she hadn't taken the time to really think about what her feelings towards her newly-discovered cousin would be. Captain Rabb nodded at her cordially. The two had had very different experiences with the Goa'uld, but an acute awareness of each other's presence, combined with the number of times their teams had pulled each other out of hot water, had served to forge a fine bond of amity with them, though neither would really call the other a friend as opposed to an acquaintance or colleague. She nodded back, then looked to Colonel MacKenzie, who had sat up since her entrance. "I was hoping we could talk a little, ma'am." "You two want me to leave?" There might not have been a catfight the previous night, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be one now. Each woman had a right to resent the other's claims on O'Hara's time during their lives. "Not on my account, sir." "Stay, Harm. We could probably use a male perspective on this at some point." He nodded and fell silent, content to watch how the two interacted. Neither woman had the faintest idea how to start the conversation.  
  
Mac broke the silence. "Not much family resemblance." "Well, it's not like we're sisters. People always told me I look like my mother." "I was a bit of a throwback to our grandmother. I got her colouring, and she taught me how to speak Farsi." "We both have short hair, though." "We're in the military. Short hair's practical." "Funny how he inspired both of us to follow him into the military but we ended up doing completely different things in different branches of the service." Mac smiled slightly. "The law's not so different from physics. See a problem, use logic and lateral thinking to solve it. I do it to win cases, you do it to save the planet." "I don't think JAG really has the excitement level of the SGC, though." "I take it Harm doesn't spend his time telling stories about his glory days in the JAG Corps, then?" "No ma'am. It's exciting?" "Anything's exciting with Harm around. We went jogging once and ended up saving a hospital from terrorists after Harm nearly got run over. And while we were doing that, Harm took some time out to deliver a baby. And then there was the time he fired an HNK into a courtroom ceiling." Harm closed his eyes and moaned. Of course. It made sense. Two women, complete strangers, discover they're closely related, and practically the first thing they do is start swapping stories about him. Talking about him as if he wasn't even there, to add insult to injury.  
  
The pair had apparently come to some sort of tacit agreement not to discuss the past. Which made sense, as there was nothing either of them could do about it, and there had been nothing either of them could do about it at the time. Harm did, however, get the distinct impression from what they weren't saying that Matthew O'Hara was going to pay, and pay dearly. It wouldn't be through any sort of direct assault. They'd already had their screaming fit at him. Now, they were just going to make his life hell, and Harm was unreservedly relieved when he came to the conclusion that the pair had decided he wasn't the enemy. Not that Sam could really have got away with making him the enemy, what with him being two ranks above her and all. When Carter left to attend to her duties, Mac seemed to remember Harm's presence and looked over to smile at him. "Chloe's gonna be so thrilled." At some point in the conversation, it would seem (probably during one of the periods when Harm had tuned out the sound of their voices and strummed his guitar a little), Chloe and Cassie had come up in conversation. There was an age gap of a few years between the two girls, with Cassie nearly ready to go off to college, but Mac seemed to think Cassie could advise Chloe on the teenage things Mac couldn't help with, and Sam was of the opinion, with which Harm concurred when Mac gave him an abridged version of that part of the conversation, that Cassie might not pull the stroppy teenager act so often if she had a young pen-pal to mentor. Harm had been told that Cassie had been charming for the first couple of years after her world was destroyed, but he personally couldn't imagine that. There were times when he really really pitied Janet. Not many, given her nasty propensity for sticking him with needles, but there were times. Though given O'Neill's legendary and apt description of her as a "Napoleonic Power Monger", she was probably better equipped to deal with Cassie than anyone else who had had sufficient security clearance at the time of her adoption was. Harm laid aside his guitar and settled down next to Mac on the bed. Their green furry chaperone climbed onto the other end and looked on with approval as Harm, not really too concerned with the intricacies of Mac's opinion of Sam now that it was apparent neither woman was going to either a) kill, b) seriously injure or c) maroon on a desert planet the other, pulled her against him and pressed his lips to hers in a passionate kiss, to which she responded ardently.  
  
When he pulled away, she smiled at him breathlessly. "Harm, if you weren't interested in what I was saying, you could have just said something." He grinned at her. "I thought this way would be more fun."  
  
He made to kiss her again, but as he did so, white-hot paid shot through his body, as if a thousand iron-tipped lances heated almost to melting- point were being dug into every inch of his skin. He had time only for a brief scream of agony before his body shut down in self-defence.  
  
His cry of pain brought a couple of SFs running from their posts in the corridor. A single glance was enough for them to see that there was something seriously wrong, and one picked up the phone while the other leaned over to check Harm's pulse. It was weak, but it was there. "Ma'am? Can you tell me what happened?" "He was just. he was perfectly normal, then all of a sudden he just screamed and collapsed like you see him now." The other SF put down the phone. "Medical team's on its way, they'll take him down to the infirmary. It's a little busy down there because SG-11 just got back and are having their post-mission physicals, but the Doc'll take good care of him." Mac nodded dumbly, staring at Harm.  
  
Twenty minutes later, Janet let out a deep sigh as she examined the results of the preliminary blood screening she had run on Harm. "What's up? Do you know what's wrong?" Mac was sitting at Harm's side, his left hand, still frail and skinny compared to the other, clasped lightly in her right. "I can't be sure, but I think he was infected with something." She looked over at the General, who was listening anxiously. "Sir, his white blood cell count is up. In the last twenty minutes I've taken two samples of blood from him, and the second has even more white blood cells in it than the first. It's as if he's fighting an infection, and at incredible speed." "Then why are you not sure that's it?" "I can't find any trace of anything that might be causing the infection. And I have no idea what he could have been infected with that could have caused such a sudden collapse without any prior indication that anything was wrong. I'm running more detailed analyses of his blood, and testing it in every way I can think of, but frankly I don't expect to come up with much, and if I do find something I'm not sure how long it will take me to find a cure. And there's something else that worries me." "Go on, Doctor." "He was given a thorough medical examination by the Asgard less than twenty- four hours ago. If he was already infected and they didn't find anything, I don't see how anything I can do is going to help. If he hadn't been infected then, that means he's been infected since then. And as he hasn't been alone since Freyr healed his arm, it's highly likely that if that's the case, other people have been infected too, they just haven't shown any symptoms yet." "What's you recommendation?" "I'd suggest locking the base down, sir. No-one comes in, no-one goes out. That should limit the possibility of an infection being spread beyond the mountain. If whatever it is is spread by air it won't help much, but I have no way of knowing whether that's the case." "I'll see to it. Keep me informed." "Yes sir." The General nodded once, then left. Janet looked over at Mac. "He's stable for the moment, but with the way his white cell count's increasing, I can't be certain he'll stay that way. If you want to get a cup of coffee, stretch your legs, now would be the time to do it." "I'm staying here." Janet wasn't remotely surprised. Refusal to leave a team-member alone in the infirmary was something she'd been dealing with from the Special Forces personnel who dominated the SG teams for as long as she'd been at the SGC. "If you need anything, just shout. His team are loitering outside, they'll help you out. Yell if any of the monitors start showing anything other than what they're showing now. I have to finish up with SG-11 but that shouldn't take too long." "Thankyou, Doctor." "No thanks necessary, Colonel. Hammer's one of my regulars, and I don't like losing patients." She moved away to attend to SG-11 and Harm's blood samples, leaving Mac alone by his side. She ran her eyes over his body. Though mostly hidden by the sheet, it was now even more apparent how much of a toll his years at the SGC had taken on him. His body was beyond lean. His visible skin was littered with scars, suggesting that Goa'uld and Asgard healing was not always available. His face, now that he had no control over it, was haggard in a way that could not solely be attributed to his current condition. It had probably been like that for a while; the scar which until the previous day had marred his handsome features had distracted the eye from looking at other parts of his face. A tidal wave of bitterness rose up within her. It was not directed against Harm, or against anyone at the SGC. They were good people, doing important work, and Harm seemed to genuinely enjoy being a part of it. He relaxed into his surroundings at the SGC in a way he hadn't for a long time at JAG. The SGC was good for him, personally if not physically, and emotional scarring from Apollo aside. No, her resentment was directed towards the Admiral. When Harm had first walked back into JAG, she resented it. She resented him. Now, she couldn't even remember why. But she'd resented him ever since his arrival in Paraguay, and perhaps to a lesser extent even before that. When the entire bullpen had heard him blow up at the Admiral, she was shocked by his presumption and audacity, especially when he must have been aware that the junior officers and enlisted personnel could hear him. She hadn't given thought to the actual words he spoke. 'People who shunned me. never tested anyone else.' Harm was right to yell at the Admiral like that. He hadn't just been an arrogant son of a bitch, he'd been a completely unfair one, and he'd tacitly encouraged the rest of the office to treat Harm in the same way he did. Mac knew, with that realisation, that she would not go back to JAG headquarters. She had seen the Admiral begin to thaw towards Harm from the moment he was shot. And even if he had a valid excuse for his behaviour, she was not sure she would be able to trust him again. She was almost certain Harm wouldn't.  
  
At around noon, the young SEAL the others called Zip brought her in a tray from the commissary. She ate the food without much enthusiasm, and held the coffee in the hand which didn't hold Harm's, not actually drinking from it. Despite having been assured it was the "Geek blend, which was strong enough to keep Major Carter going for three months once", she had a feeling it wouldn't be enough to keep away the exhaustion that had crept up on her while she sat there doing nothing, rambling to Harm about things which didn't make much sense, and weren't remotely important.  
  
About an hour after this, by which time Mac had set down the cup of now tepid coffee, still without having drunk any of it, she heard a violent yet muted curse from the other side of the infirmary. She looked over to see Janet glaring angrily at a computer screen. "Doctor? What's wrong?" Janet looked over at her and sighed. "I think I've worked out what's wrong with the Captain."  
  
"Can you cure him?" "I don't know. I've never come across anything like this before." She held out a picture to Mac. "What am I looking at?" "The Captain's blood, magnified obviously. You notice anything unusual about it?" "I'm not a doctor. I don't exactly spend my time staring at enlarged pictures of Harm's blood." "Generally speaking, blood has a great deal of surface tension, partly due to its relatively high water content. It behaves in a manner very similar to water when it flows. It stays in droplets unless it comes into contact, at a certain amount of speed, with another body of liquid with a similar surface tension. And when it flows, it doesn't leave much of itself behind, but it does leave traces adhering to the surface, like water leaves things damp. You follow me so far?" "I think so. But I have no idea where you're going with this." "Where blood has been, there's almost always a trace of it left on the surface. Where blood hasn't been, the blood next to that spot tends to have a curved edge, like water that comes above the top of a glass without spilling. That's because of the surface tension. But I've let Hammer's blood flow all around this petrie dish. I even swirled it a few times. And as you can see on the picture, there are tiny spots where there are absolutely no traces of blood. Not even a single red blood cell. But the blood beside it doesn't have the usual curved surface." "Which means?" The conscious members of SG-6 had entered the room during Janet's description, and had listened attentively. "It means there's something else there, breaking the surface tension, in the blood but not a part of it." "So it's an infection?" "Yes." "So you find a way to get rid of it. You analyse the thing that's in the blood and find out how to kill it, or get it out or whatever." "That's the theory. But it would be a whole lot easier if whatever it is that's in his blood wasn't completely invisible."  
  
Sam had been summoned to help out. Selmak had admitted that the Tok'Ra had never encountered anything like it before, and likely didn't have any relevant information, and had not hung around in the infirmary long, choosing instead to help Dr Jackson go over mission logs from all SG teams that had returned to Earth within the time frame Janet felt it most likely Harm had been infected in, looking at inscriptions recorded from old ruins and translating them, hoping to find the key to whatever it was that had infected Harm. Sam had come up with a theory, which she explained to the General when he dropped by for a progress report. "Sir, you remember the incident with the crystal skull? Daniel was knocked out of phase with this reality, and none of us could see or interact with him, and he could walk through walls? I think whatever the parasite is that's invaded Captain Rabb's system is like that. Out of phase with our reality." "Then how's it causing this reaction in the Captain?" "Sir, you'll recall that when Daniel was out of phase, although he could walk through walls he never fell through the floor, even when he wasn't on the lowest level of the SGC, or when he was upstairs above ground level. So while he couldn't interact with most things, he did at least have a presence in this reality to some extent. I mean, light obviously was able to interact with him, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to see, and he could interact with oscillating molecules in the air otherwise he'd never have been able to hear anything. It's possible there's something in the Captain's system that these things are able to interact with and lock on to. We just have no idea what that is yet, or how to stop them." "Keep working on it. Anything else?" "Well sir, given that these things are out of phase, we have no real way to control them. They obviously found a way to infect the Captain, but we don't know what that was. Now as it stands, it's probable that they can travel through most forms of solid matter. So it's entirely possible that they may have spread beyond the mountain." "But as Captain Rabb appears to be the only one affected inside the mountain, isn't it also probable that no-one outside the mountain is going to be affected? From what I understand, Hammer's blood has picked up a lot of strange substances since he's been here. If it's one of them that's allowing the parasites to interact with him, then no-one else should have a problem." Janet chose to respond to this one. "That's true, sir, but we can't be entirely certain that no-one else is infected. It's possible other people are infected, just haven't shown symptoms yet. The Captain has a very fast metabolism as a result of his experiences, and this could simply have spread up the process. Until we know exactly what it is that the parasites are interacting with, we have no way of knowing whether other people are at risk. I'd like to start taking blood samples from everyone on the base, especially the teams recently returned. The blood I took from them has been tested too much for other things to be any use now." "I'll instruct everyone to be at your disposal, and I'll alert the Pentagon that there's a chance of an epidemic of some sort." "Thank you, sir."  
  
"Ma'am? You okay?" Mac came awake with a start, her eyes immediately flying to Harm to check that he was still with her, if not consciously. Satisfied that the machines were making their usual gentle beeps she turned to look at Janet. "I'm fine. Just a little tired I guess." "You're had a stressful couple of days. Not surprising it caught up with you." "You find anything out?" "It looks like SG-11 brought it back with them. They were on base for about half an hour before Harm's reaction. I'm almost certain that his collapse wasn't a direct result of the presence of these things, though. Rather, his white blood cells, due to all the foreign bodies his blood has got used to, have started reacting to invasive presences with lightning speed, and with that goes violence. You said he seemed to be in extreme pain, and that would be borne out by his body's reaction. The white blood cells were so violent in attacking the invaders that they hit nerve endings, which is what caused the pain." "So what happens now?" "Hopefully, the Captain will recover on his own, given time. The sudden pain caused his body a great deal of shock, and some of it probably caused some trauma to his blood vessels. The amount of the parasite in his blood seems to be going down. However, if he gets reinfected we've got a problem." "Won't he be immune if he's reinfected?" "That's the problem. Immunity is essentially the body attacking a pathogen before it can take hold enough for symptoms to show. Harm essentially already had that. Now that he's developed some antibodies against the parasite, any reaction he has will be even faster. Which would potentially cause even more damage to his system, which isn't in the best of condition to start with. The only way we can completely eliminate the risk to him is to effectively destroy every last individual of this parasite that's currently on this planet." "Which would be practically impossible." "I'm afraid so. And what's worse, some other personnel, especially SG-11, seem to be developing symptoms related to the parasite. Their shoulder muscles are seizing up, making their backs spasm, and they're getting impaired vision. And unlike the Captain, they don't seem to be able to create antibodies against these things, so they're multiplying exponentially." Mac stared at her. "So every second, the risk of Harm being reinfected is increasing, and because these things aren't really in our reality, we can't even reliably isolate them?" Janet had to give her credit. She was smarter than your average Marine. "That's about the size of it, Colonel." Cold filled Mac's body. If anything, she was even less optimistic now than she had been when the doctor had no idea what was going on. Because now, she had a more realistic idea of the odds involved in Harm's recovery. Then something occurred to her. Her dream of Harm had been full of his blood, and living things were springing from it. What were those words again?  
  
sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo.  
  
"Doctor? Where would I go on this base if I wanted someone to translate something for me?" "Dr Jackson's office." "Where would I find it?" Janet gave her brief directions. "Thankyou. If anything else happens with Harm, could you send someone to find me?" "Of course." "Thanks." And with that, Mac was out of the infirmary like a bat out of Hell.  
  
The labyrinth of concrete had never seemed so small and insignificant as it did as Mac flew through it on her way to Daniel's lab, not once acknowledging or even noticing the stares and greetings of those she passed in the corridors. Not stopping to knock when she arrived at Jackson's office, she entered the room like a hurricane, calm at the very centre but causing chaos around her. Selmak, who was still looking through SG-11's mission log, shrank into the background like the good Tok'Ra operative that he was. Daniel, despite the fact that people often ran into his office for no apparent reason and without announcing their arrival, jumped from his chair, startled. "Colonel? Can I help you?" "sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo." "I'm sorry?" "sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo." "If you say so." his voice trailed off. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?" "I don't know. What does it mean?" "Well, sangue is the ablative singular of the Latin word 'sanguis' meaning blood. 'meo' could be either dative or ablative, but is most likely to agree with sangue, so we can take it as being ablative too, so that means 'by, with or from my blood'. 'vobis' is the dative or ablative of the plural 'you', so it's essentially, 'to, for, by with or from you, plural', 'vitam' is the accusative singular of 'life', and 'donabo' is the first person singular future indicative of 'dono', 'I give'." Mac stared at him. "So the phrase means?" "By/With/From my blood, I shall give life to you, with 'you' referring to more than one person." Something told him he shouldn't have gone into all the grammatical explanation. "Thankyou, Doctor Jackson." And as abruptly as she had arrived, she departed again.  
  
Halfway back to the infirmary she encountered Harm Sr, just released from a round of somewhat unusual debriefings held via video-conference and heading over to where he was told his son was in potentially life-threatening condition. "Colonel? Can you tell me what's going on with my son? And why everyone on base has been having blood drawn?" "Call me Mac, sir, and it's fairly complicated But I think I have an idea how we can deal with it. Stay with me, we're probably going to need you." They had kept moving during the conversation, and were now nearly at their destination. "Why would you need me?" "You've got blood." He would have stopped dead where he stood at that statement, were it not for the fact that the wind of Mac's passing practically dragged him along behind her.  
  
Sam and Janet looked at each other thoughtfully. "This sort of thing's worked before." Janet nodded. "When SG-1 brought back those things that could only be killed by the protein marker of a dead Goa'uld. We separated the marker out of your blood and injected everyone who'd been infected." Sam shivered slightly at the reference to Jolinar, and the experience of watching her friends go slowly insane in front of her eyes. "You think we can isolate the appropriate antibodies quickly enough? You said SG-11's deteriorating rapidly now they're all showing symptoms, and other people are starting to as well." "It won't be as simple. And as more people are infected, we're going to need a lot more of the Captain's blood. Especially as we don't know how much it's going to take to cure even one person." Mac butted in here. "That's where Harm's father comes in. I checked their tags, they're the same blood group, so we can transfuse Harm with his dad's blood. And you won't even need to separate out the antibodies to make sure Harm's father isn't infected." Janet thought for a minute, then agreed. "And because of the similarity in their blood beyond the basic blood group level, there's not so much risk of Harm having a bad reaction to his father's blood as there would be with someone who didn't have similar DNA. We don't know how violently Captain Rabb's immune system might react to blood from someone he's not related to, after how it reacted to the parasites. Let's get started." She then looked at Mac more thoughtfully. "Colonel, would you mind sitting with the Captain? His vitals went haywire after you left, I think your presence soothes him." "Just try and keep me away from him."  
  
Things were not proceeding as fast as Janet would have liked. It seemed that the antibodies Harm had produced to combat the out-of-phase parasites had a very loose grip on reality. They themselves would change phase every few seconds, so that they were sometimes in phase with Harm's body, sometimes in phase with the parasites. This, naturally, made them somewhat difficult to isolate. However, by injecting Harm Sr directly with his son's blood Janet had at least been able to determine that the antibodies Harm had produced would kill the parasites in another person's body. So she had started injecting the people of Harm's blood-type in the same way, hoping the antibodies would stay around long enough to prevent reinfection. This had, however, created another problem. The reason other people had not been able to start producing antibodies against the parasites was that the parasites were out of phase. The antibodies, however, which went in an out of phase as they felt like it, spent about half of their time as fair game. The immune systems of the people injected, realising that these things were both foreign and highly weird, attempted in turn to create antibodies against them, during the time when the things were in phase. A few of them succeeded, and had a small number of antibodies fighting things which were antibodies in themselves which in turn were fighting the pathogen of whose existence the immune systems were barely aware of. Which was putting the bodies through hell, and preventing Harm's antibodies from doing all the good they potentially could. Janet was seriously considering requesting a transfer.  
  
All this flew over Mac's head. She was paying absolutely no attention to what was going on in the rest of the infirmary; indeed, she only noticed its existence whenever someone came over to take a small sample of Harm's blood or transfuse a bit more of Harm Sr's into him. None of what was going on really mattered to Mac except in as far as it related to making sure Harm wasn't reinfected.  
  
In the early afternoon, the infirmary received a new occupant. Fortunately, this one was not ill, nor did it run the risk of becoming so or making others more so. It was green, furry, and very affectionate, and it had soon endeared itself enough to the nurses to persuade them to put another chair next to Harm's bed, on which it could settle down and keep an eye on both Harm and Mac, as if it was worried that something might happen to them. It purred therapeutically, soothing both the patients and the frought medical staff who were working to eradicate the parasite. It was an hour or so after the creature's arrival that Harm began to show signs of waking up. His eyelids began to flutter, and he moved restlessly in his bed for about five minutes before his eyes snapped open and he let out another yelp of pain. This startled Mac out of the state of semi- consciousness into which she had drifted, and she tightened her grip on Harm's hand, which had relaxed as she had dozed off. "Harm?!" "Mac?" His voice sounded like it had been dragged over a cheese-grater. "Why do I hurt so much?" Janet was at his side by this time. "You had an extreme immune response to something SG-11 brought back with them. You appear to be the only person capable of producing antibodies against it, so we're trying to isolate those antibodies from your bloodstream and use them to cure other people. We're not having much success so far." Harm nodded, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. "Anything I can do to help?" Mac didn't see why he asked that question. He was lying on a hospital bed in agony, for God's sake! This was probably taking the hero complex a bit far. But Janet understood the meaning behind the words, and shook her head. "It's almost definitely not Goa'uld in origin. Selmak had never seen anything like it. So Apollo probably hadn't either, given that he remained on Earth until relatively recently." Harm sighed, and Mac was given a tiny bit more insight into his feelings regarding Apollo. He didn't exactly resent the unfamiliar memories and unfriendly presence in his head, but he hated times when they weren't any use; it was as if he was going through all that hell for nothing. "Okay, Doc. You want me to try and control my blood composition?" Janet glared at him. "I've told you a thousand times not to try and consciously control things like that. We have no idea what sort of long- term effects that could have." Harm, to his credit, did not shrink away under her stare. "You just said you weren't doing too well. If there's a chance I can isolate the antibody for you, shouldn't I at least try?" He held Janet's stare until she relented, shrugging. "You can try. But don't be surprised if it doesn't work. You can't even be certain what it is you're looking for, let alone reliably isolate it." "I'm a Naval Aviator. I can do anything." The cocky side of his personality was obviously not being repressed by the pain he was in.  
  
He closed his eyes, lacing his fingers together with Mac's as he did so, automatically drawing on her for strength. ~So. You want my help.~ ~I can do this myself.~ ~Using my memories of human physiology.~ ~Call those memories the spoils of victory.~ ~This isn't going to work, you know.~ ~I don't know. And for some reason, I'm not really inclined to trust you.~ ~If you die, I die. I have a vested interest in this.~ ~Two things, snake. One, you're already dead. Two, you know as well as I do this isn't about keeping me alive, it's about keeping other people alive. In which you have never ever had a vested interest, unless you count your slaves and your champions.~ If thoughts could look and looks could kill, Harm would at the very least have slipped into a coma at that point. But at least the voice of Apollo receded.  
  
It would be impossible to describe Harm's examination of his own body, feeling his way around, poking the occasional neuron, wandering down a nervous pathway, directing his consciousness in a completely internal manner. But eventually, he found what he was looking for.  
  
It wasn't quite what he had expected.  
  
Instead of just another bunch of nerves, he found something that looked liked it belonged in the X-Men movie. Not, of course, that he had ever seen it. Well, maybe once. Or twice. Or a teeeeny bit more than that. But that was beside the point. The nerves before him glowed. They hummed. They practically screamed 'We're not normal!'. Their gentle pulsing was out of sync with the beating of his heart and the pulsing of his blood. But they were nothing to do with Apollo. He felt in them none of the naquadah that flowed like grey fire throughout the rest of his body. This was something altogether different. Something greater. He had, of course, absolutely no idea what to do with it.  
  
Mac watched Harm with concern. It was eleven minutes and forty-two seconds since he had closed his eyes, and his vital signs were going haywire. A look of confusion had just passed over his face, and in her experience that didn't bode well. "Harm?" He didn't respond to her voice visibly, but the frantic beating of his heart monitor calmed. Taking comfort from the fact that he was obviously aware of her presence, Mac forced herself not to panic, and simply watched him, alert for any further deterioration in his condition. Janet and Harm Sr stood on the other side of Harm, apparently doing the same, though Harm Sr's eyes were on Mac almost as often as they were on his son.  
  
His conscious self wandered closer to the nerves. Had he been in his normal state, Harm would have been looking at the bundle of nerves sideways, watching for it to so something while it thought he wasn't looking. As he drew nearer, it glowed brighter. Harm reached out with a small tendril of his Self, drawn to the light as a moth to a flame. Which was odd, his inner lawyer thought, because this glowing bundle of nerves was a part of him. How could he be drawn to a part of himself? The tendril of Self that had been stretching towards the nerves came into contact with them, and Harm felt himself overwhelmed by a huge outpouring of light and noise.  
  
He was standing atop a cliff, looking out over the grey sea. Clouds on the horizon suggested another land mass about twenty miles distant. He watched for the ships he knew would be coming. He couldn't see them, but he knew they would come. They had to come. History said they would, history written long ago by a hand whose words could not be erased. The ships would come, and the end would begin. He crouched down, putting his hand to the grass, dragging his fingers through the thin topsoil that divided the new grass from the old chalk; what lived now from what had lived before. The soil was flecked with the chalk, but the chalk was no true part of it. The chalk contributed to the life of the grass, but did not sustain it, could not sustain it. He held a lump of the soil in his hand, watching it as he shook it. Earth fell out of it, and chalk, and the roots of the grass. The clot crumbled in his hand, and he let the pieces fall away through the gaps between his fingers as he raised his eyes once more to the horizon. In the distance, ships were visible, seeming no more than toy boats, making their way across a body of water that, over time, had changed more lives than any other, for better and for worse. He stood, the wind of the clifftop whipping through his clothes and his hair. He pulled his cloak tightly around him, fighting off the chill of the offshore wind sweeping down from the North. He turned to look inland, the force and cold of the wind making his eyes water. The land before him was beautiful, but it was a wild beauty. In the years to come, the land would be tamed, and in the taming it would lose something of what it was. The white chalk cliffs would lose their shine, and grime would cling to their surface. And what was to happen in a few hours was to be the catalyst which would set that in motion. Atlantis was about to sink.  
  
Harm's breathing had changed. All indications were that he was now asleep. And while his EEG said that he was probably dreaming, there was no sign of his eyes moving. He seemed to have entered REM sleep spontaneously, and without any actual Rapid Eye Movement.  
  
He climbed from his horse. The Host was drawn up on the plain before him. He ran his eyes over them, approximating their numbers in his head, and drawing in a deep breath. If this came to battle, it would be a close one, and there would be a lot of death. And that was something they couldn't afford. He walked along in front of the ranks to where their leader stood beside his horse, resplendent in his battle armour, the banners rippling in the breeze around him in their glorious colours trying valiantly to make the man seem younger than he was. But it was impossible to deny that the man was past his prime. The man had only one battle left in him. History demanded that this battle not be it.  
  
Harmon Rabb Senior looked down at his son, his eyes clouded with worry. It would be the most cruel of cosmic jokes, for him to be saved from death and brought forward in time to see his son as a grown man, only for that son to be lost to him within a matter of hours.  
  
He knelt before the king. "My liege." "What news?" "The fleet has landed, your Grace. They're sending forth an advance party to parlay." "Who heads the party?" "You know who heads it, sire." The king nodded, and looked to the old man who stood at his side. "Well, old friend, the time has come. As you warned me it would." The older man bowed his head, but said nothing. The king gave a small smile, and ran his eyes down the ranks of his men. "They will not want to fight this battle." "They must not fight this battle, my liege." He spoke with absolute certainty, and the king looked back to him, a spark of amusement in his tired eyes. "And why is that? And who are you to know it?" "If a single man standing here today falls before his time, all is lost, my king. I know it in my bones." The elderly man nodded. "He is right. You must accept the parlay. If this should come to battle, not only will your kingdom be destroyed, but all memory of it will be lost. And that is something that must not happen." "You would have me treat with a traitor?" "He is a good man, and he loves you dearly. Do not let more blood be shed over this matter. Your pride has already been your downfall; do not let it be the downfall of everything." "Your Grace, they approach. Under flag of truce." The king mounted his horse, and rode forth to meet the newcomers, his bannerman and attendants close behind him.  
  
A look of calm resignation came to Harm's features. Gently brushing an imaginary strand of hair from his forehead, Mac wondered what he was dreaming about.  
  
He looked at the older man. "There is nothing we can do now." "No. But I believe enough has been said." "This will not come to battle?" "There will be no blood shed today. Tomorrow I cannot promise you. This field demands blood; History demands that blood be shed it. And I think it unlikely that another war host will ever be drawn up here." He nodded, a crisp nod, the nod of a man getting the job done. "Until tomorrow, then?" "Until tomorrow."  
  
Time flew. The battle did not come that day, as he had known it could not. More was at stake than one king's pride. The traitor was allowed to leave, admitting to a wrong he had never denied, but had persisted in all the same. Those who had taken his part were welcomed back by their liege lord. He was beginning to get an inkling of what was to come.  
  
He rode out again the next morning. The wind was blowing from the East, and the sun shone brightly through the cold of the morning air. Frost covered the ground; the previous night had been cloudless. He found the elderly man easily. "Today?" "Today. Scouts have brought news of the approach. This plain will have its blood." He turned his eyes into the wind and the sun. "This has been a long time coming." "It will be a long time remembered. Not accurately, but the important things."  
  
The two hosts formed up on opposite sides of the plain, as the two leaders and their retinues rode out to meet. The king and his bastard son, the heads of opposing armies, the one old and wearied by the long years, the other young, arrogant, in search of the crown he should never wear. The hosts watched them like hawks. The terms of the parlay called for no weapons to be drawn, but neither side trusted the other. He felt History approaching. It hung in the air like mist on a November morning. His eyes, sharp as those of a hawk on the wing, saw movement in the grass before anyone else did. He saw the snake raise its head and bite the Achilles tendon of a darkly-clad knight. And in the instant before it happened, he saw how Atlantis would be lost. The knight drew his sword and smote the head of the adder clean from its body. And as he did so, the naked steel of the blade caught the sun, and light flashed across the plain. There was a moment of silence. And then the shout went up, echoed by a shout from the other side, and the archers of two armies drew back their bowstrings and let fly, while the cavalry charged with the footsoldiers close behind in support. And the Plain of Camlann was strewn with blood  
  
Despair flickered across Harm's features as the muscles in his jaw clenched, and the fingers of his right hand flexed, as if preparing to reach for a weapon. His lips moved in silent prayer, but still his eyes did not open, nor did his eyes move beneath their lids.  
  
But for himself and the old man, only four remained standing on the field as the orange hue of evening filled the sky. The king faced his bastard in the middle of the field, his two remaining knights behind him. They circled each other, each wary, each suffering already from minor wounds. Then both moved at the same time, hefting their blades at the other's head. Both men found their mark, and both fell, mortally wounded. The bastard had but an instant to look to his father. "And so I die. But so do you." "Not yet, my son." Awareness filled him as his blood left his body. He knew what would happen, now. "Not yet."  
  
The younger of the two knights fell to the ground at his lord and master's side. "Your Grace?" "Take me from the field." "Sire, you are wounded. You should not be moved." "Take me from the field. It is not my destiny to die on the Plain of Camlann, my friend." The young man sighed, and beckoned to his older friend. "Help me carry him."  
  
The two men carrying their king ignored the other two, one old and wizened, the other young and strong. They walked behind, following without intervening. When they left the field, the king was laid upon the ground. "My liege? We have done as you asked. The Plain is behind us now, to the East." "Do you see a ridge to the North-West, my friend?" "I do, sire." "Beyond it is a lake. Take my sword and throw it into the waters, then return to me, and tell me what you saw." "You would have me cast away your sword?" "I shall have no further use of it. Go." The young knight did as he was commanded, taking the sword and heading from the ridge. The others remained where they were until his return, not long after, without the blade. "What did you see?" The king's voice was growing weaker. "Nothing, my lord. Nothing but the wind rippling the water." "Then you have not done as I commanded. Go, and cast the blade into the water." The knight left, then again returned without the blade. "What did you see?" "Nothing, my lord." "Go again, and cast my sword into the waters of the lake. And do not lie to me a third time, my friend. I have been betrayed enough in my life."  
  
This time, he followed the knight. This time was significant. The young man took the blade out from behind a bush, and held it at the water's edge. He stared at it long and hard. It was a fine weapon, a weapon truly fit for a king. He sighed. It should have been buried with its master, but it was not to be. With a cry of something approaching pain, the knight hurled the blade out across the waters of the lake. As it reached the centre of the water, as far from the bank as it could go, a hand reached up out of the water and caught the sword by the hilt. It was a feminine hand, yet it held the sword firmly, and brandished it aloft in salute before descending once again beneath the surface of the water. He smiled. A wry smile. It had been done. There was no turning back now. Everything had been set in motion. He followed the knight, walking in a daze back to where his king lay dying.  
  
The king smiled at the story he was told. "Thank you, my friend, for doing this for me. I release you from my service; you are free to leave me if you please. I shall be leaving soon, and neither of you can accompany me. If you do not wish to see my departure, leave now." "I will not leave you now, my king. I have served you all my life; I will not stop now." The other knight nodded in agreement. "So be it. I ask you, not as your king but as you friend, to bear me over the ridge to the lake. After that, I shall have no further need of you."  
  
Harm's pulse was slowing, but not dangerously, and Janet was loath to do anything to intervene. She had no idea what was happening to Harm, and didn't know whether anything she might do would worsen the situation. Mac paid no attention to the concerned looks of those standing around Harm's bed. She kept her eyes fixed on Harm's face, waiting for those blue-green eyes to open again and smile at her.  
  
The lake was deceptively still. The other bank was invisible, shrouded in mist. He looked out over the water, once more awaiting the sight of a ship. It glided out of the mist like some sort of ghost, crewed by veiled women, with a woman standing at the prow who was graced with both the beauty of youth and the stately bearing of extreme age. The ship came to rest against the bank, and the women rose to carry the king aboard. The old man followed, while the two knights stepped back from the bank, fear and wonder in their eyes. He stepped onto the ship beside the old man, and looked down at the king, lying as if in state. He looked at the old man. "It is time?" "It is time. He shall be conveyed to his rest, and the sleep of ages, and his kingdom shall crumble, falling to the invaders. His age is over." "Then so is ours." "It is. Our age will not come again for many generations. I shall sleep. I am old and weary. I doubt I shall ever wake. You shall lie dormant, yourself but not yourself, a glimmer of your Self remaining in those who come after you, until one day, the little that remains is awakened." The old man looked down at the king he had served for many long years. "You have similar destinies, you and he. To save others. His role earns him fame now; your fame will come in the future, and you will not know yourself until the time comes." He stared out over the water, seeing the land rising in front of them. Their destination was close. "I have heard that he will return again, and I think that this is so. Is it?" "He will return. It is written. But in what form, and in what role, I cannot tell." The ship ground to a halt against the bank, and the women once again rose, taking the king in their arms and walking out onto the land. They climbed the steep rise in front of them, and laid him on the ground. The Earth opened of its own volition and swallowed him hole, closing over him and leaving only a pulsing ball of light above where his head lay. He looked to the old man. "That is my path." "It is. The king sleeps now. It is time for you to go. What we have done here is finished. When you have set foot upon your path, I shall go to my sleep. I believe I have earned it." "You have, sir. You had a difficult task, made more difficult by the actions of the man you served." "It could not have been any other way. Go now."  
  
He stepped onto the shore, and walked slowly towards the light. And in a gesture that felt strangely familiar, he reached out his arm to it.  
  
Harm came awake with a start.  
  
"Congratulations, Captain." Harm turned his head abruptly, startled by Janet's words. "What?" "I don't know what you just did, but your blood seems to be filtering out the antibodies it's producing." "How?" "The blood that's still connected to your body by tubes, but which isn't still in your system, is converting most of its fibrinogen to fibrin, as if trying to form a blood-clot over a wound. But instead of red blood cells becoming lodged in the nets of fibrin, small particles which I don't think can be anything other than your antibodies are being caught, which is effectively removing them from you bloodstream." "Think you can isolate them and use them to cure people?" "I'm not sure how easy it'll be, but I'd say there's a good chance. And as that means your work here is done, I suggest you get some rest." "I've done nothing but rest all day, Doc." There was a plaintive note to his words now, and Mac smiled at him in a motherly fashion. "Harm, as you've been told by doctors a thousand times, being pretty much comatose is not the same as resting." "Mac-" "Don't argue with me. You won't win." "I outrank you." "But Doctor Fraiser outranks you in any matter pertaining to your health." There was an explosion of laughter at that comment. Mac looked around at all the members of Harm's team, then turned back to Harm, the query evident in her eyes. "Colonel O'Neill issued a general order a few months ago that no-one was ever to mention that fact in Janet's earshot in case she got ideas." Janet smiled. "In this case, I think I can release you into Colonel MacKenzie's care once we're finished transfusing you." "Nice one, skipper," Zip was grinning widely, "You complain about being stuck with an Air Force Major with a scary number of needles, so instead you get a Jarhead Lieutenant Colonel who's just made friends with an animal that can shred steel with its claws." "Zip, when was the last time you spent the night in the same room as a woman?" He laughed. "Okay, you win." He shook his head. "And for your information, it wasn't as long ago as you think." Harm arched an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe it was. I'm gonna leave now."  
  
Normally when Mac was around Special Ops people, she was the outsider, the investigator, the person you put on a front for. She had seen the men close ranks and do remarkably good impressions of clams, but this was her first real opportunity to see the bond between the men when it wasn't going hand- in-hand with stubbornness; when it wasn't causing anyone any trouble. She had to admit that she liked the look of it. A big part of her wished she'd been here with Harm all the time, watching him form these bonds, watching him enjoy himself. A small part of her was jealous. He joked with his men in a way he used only to joke with her. It made the bond between the two of them seem somehow less powerful.  
  
Half an hour later, Janet allowed Mac to help Harm out of bed and up to his quarters, closely followed by the furry creature, which had now apparently designated itself Harm's emergency crutch.  
  
"Mac? You okay?" "Harm, which of us spent the entire day unconscious?" "I heal quickly. One of the plus points about having the dissolved corpse of an alien parasite in your bloodstream. But you just had to sit their watching all day. And when Zip and I were joking around you looked sad." "I guess I was just realising how much your life has changed since you left JAG, and how I don't really have a place in it any more." "Mac-" "I don't mean like that, Harm. I know I have a place in your life. But at JAG we were partners at first, then we were colleagues. Here I'm just the Marine pencil-pusher from Washington." "So transfer here. The General would support it, I'm always telling him I can't handle all the JAG stuff by myself. If you handle all the on-base legal stuff and some of the interplanetary, I could still do some JAG stuff but I wouldn't have the added pressure of that along with all the other stuff I do. And I'd have you around to watch my six." "Isn't that what your team's for?" "They're generally busy shooting the bad guys." "I'm beginning to wonder how you guys survived this long." "By not going on many missions with SG-1. Nine times out of ten anyone who goes with them, or who goes on a mission when SG-1's the only team available for backup, ends up dead, in prison, stranded on a deserted planet, mysteriously ill or taken over by computers." Mac started to laugh, then suddenly realised that Harm was at least part serious. But Harm and his friends obviously saw SGC life as a good thing, despite the risks, and her curiosity was piqued. When he had told her, Boone and his father about the general course of his life over the last year, he hadn't given any details of his day-to-day life, or what his general duties entailed. "Harm? Apart from your shoot-em-up missions, what do you actually do?"  
  
"Do you mean what do I do in theory, or what do I do in practise?" "Either." "Well, the theory is that I lead SG-6, and handle any bits of emergency diplomacy the team needs to do with locals. I deal with all the base's internal and external legal affairs, with the help of a few Zoomie JAGs, some based here, some at the Pentagon. I also serve as an aviator flying the F-504s you saw yesterday, both in combat and scanning for minerals on planets without gates." "And in reality?" "I lead SG-6, and do the emergency diplomacy. If any member of any team gets into any sort of trouble with the natives, I'm sent in to try and resolve the situation, based on the fact that I'm a lawyer who knows how politics and diplomacy work. They used to use Dr Jackson for that, but he always seemed to make the situation worse, and we don't have a full-time diplomatic team any more. I deal with all the base's legal stuff, including reasoning with the owners of local bars when our guys trash their places under the influence of alien viruses, which happens more often than you'd think. Cheyenne Mountain personnel are barred from half the bars in Colorado. I fly the F-504s a lot, almost as much as some of their full-time pilots. And since the whole business with Apollo, I've had even more stuff to do." "Such as?" "Translation of ancient inscriptions. Being an interpreter during off-world trade negotiations. Helping Major Carter reverse-engineer alien technology, teaching dead languages to other SGC personnel with the occasional seminar at the Air Force Academy for the more gifted cadets slated to join the SGC. And I write down anything I can remember of the literature of lost civilisations." "How can you know the literature?" "A lot of this planet's greatest literature comes from the time before writing was common, or in some places even existed. Poets recited from memory. Apollo was the god of music, and always took poets as his hosts, and kept others around in his palaces. He was exposed to a lot of the stuff; he even composed some of it, or ordered it composed. In my head I'm holding the greatest store of this planet's ancient knowledge ever to ezist, and when I die, those memories will die with me. So I have to get as much as I can written out. One day, the Gate won't be a secret any more, and the poems and plays I carry around in me head will keep classical scholars busy for centuries." Mac took a minute to absorb what Harm had said, considering the implications. "Doesn't sound like you have much time to yourself. What you've just described is more than enough work for a dozen people." "All the more reason for you to transfer here and lift my burden." "So you can spend more time on everything else?" Harm began to see where she was going with this line of questioning. His suspicions were confirmed by the fact that she refused to look him in the eye. "Mac, look at me." She glanced at him, then turned away again. He sighed, reaching out to cup her face in his hand, drawing her chin towards him so that he was staring into her deep brown eyes. "I've been balancing this workload for a while now, Mac. I know how to get a really useful amount of work out of a day. It's meant that my days are completely full, and the guys only drag me away from time to time to have some fun, but I haven't had anything else I've wanted to do, so that's been okay. If my workload goes down because you come and take some of it away from me, I'm not going to try and fill that time with other work. I may sometimes have been a little slow in the past when it came to you, but I'm not stupid. You're the one I'd spend that time with." His grin widened. "I figure that's only fair, seeing as you'd be the one giving me the time. And you can spend other time with me. You know Russian and Farsi, so you've got a natural advantage when it comes to learning new languages. You're interested in dinosaurs, and the poems I have in my head are the verbal equivalent of dinosaurs. We made a great team at JAG, Mac. I think we could make an even better one here." She gazed into his eyes, slightly awed by the intensity of their expression. Then she returned his smile. "I guess we have to speak to the General."  
  
"Okay, we'll talk to him, but could it wait until the morning? I'm not sure I could make it to his office without collapsing." "Do you need to go back to sickbay?" "Mac, did you see the size of the needles Janet likes to use?" "Is the big bad SEAL afraid of needles?" "No. But doctors on power trips are never good, and Janet likes to make up for being short. So how about we stay here, with this little guy as our chaperone, and talk to the General in the morning? That way we're also putting off talking to the Admiral. I don't think he's going to be happy to lose you." "He can't complain too much. We all know I shouldn't have been stationed at headquarters continuously for as long as I have. You shouldn't get too comfortable with a billet, and that's what's happened at JAG. Though it hasn't been as comfortable since you left, especially since Christmas." "When O'Neill decked the Admiral? I would have paid to see that. Sturgis said he'll never forget it." "You're the injured friend, aren't you? The one Sturgis was keeping tabs on?" "Yeah. He met O'Neill at the Wall on Christmas Eve. He'd seen me there before in the distance after I got my promotion, and was hoping I'd turn up again. O'Neill was there instead, I couldn't go because I was in a coma. They got to talking, and Sturgis told him what had happened when the Admiral wouldn't take me back. Jack has a thing about leaving people behind; he got left behind for three months in Iraq. So he told Sturgis they didn't know each other, then went to JAG a few days later to tell the Admiral what he thought of him. Then Jack phoned Sturgis at every opportunity to update him on my condition. It's probably Sturgis' fault I ended up back at JAG; he told Jack that if I couldn't fly or play the guitar, they'd have to find an intellectual way to keep me occupied." "That explains the look on his face when the Admiral told us you'd be arriving that afternoon." "I'm still not sure whether to thank him for that or punch his lights out." "I'd thank him. It gave us the chance to work things out." "It also got me shot." "Which in turn got you your father back." "I'd forgotten that." She stared at him in disbelief. "Harm, how could you forget getting your father back? Getting what you've been dreaming of since you were six?" "It doesn't feel real yet. I'm not sure it's ever going to feel completely real. It's as if I dreamed it, and don't want to think about it too much because then when I let myself admit it's a dream I'll go through the pain of losing him all over again." "It's not a dream, Harm. I was there." "I know. And I'm never going to be able to thank you enough for that." "Watching you see your father again is all the thanks I'm ever gonna need." He smiled softly at that, and pulled her towards him. "Humour me, Mac. I like to think I can thank you with my charms." "Well in that case, you'll have to let me use my feminine wiles to thank you for saving me in Paraguay." "Deal." And with that, he pressed his lips to hers, at which moment their green companion began to purr, with a faint air of feline smugness. Harm smiled against Mac's lips. "I think our chaperone approves."  
  
Their kiss would probably have gone on quite a bit longer, and gone a lot further, had they not been interrupted after only a few minutes by the sound of the base's intercom being activated. "Captain Rabb and Colonel MacKenzie report to General Hammond's office. Repeat, Captain Rabb and Colonel MacKenzie report to General Hammond's office."  
  
"Sir?" After a cursory knock on the General's door, Harm had wandered into the office and stood perfectly casually in front of the desk. Behind him, Mac stood not quite at attention, unused to such lack of ceremony. The General noticed that. "Relax, Colonel. I don't put my people at attention unless they're in a lot of trouble. I know they're the best, they don't have to try and prove it to me. I'm sure you're both wondering why you're here." The two of them nodded. Their companion growled, rubbing the side of his head protectively against Harm's leg whilst winding his tail around Mac's. Harm smiled, leaning down to rub the creature's head. "We were a little curious, sir." His words were accompanied by another, more throaty growl, and a large pair of golden eyes stared menacingly at the General. It appeared that Harm and Mac were not the only ones slightly put out by the interruption. "I just had a call from Admiral Chegwidden. He wants to know whether either or both of you will be reporting for duty at JAG tomorrow morning." "No, sir." "I suspected as much. Is there anything the two of you would like to run by me?" At least these two weren't even trying to hide how they felt about each other. It was a refreshing change after dealing with O'Neill and Carter for so long. "General, we were wondering if Mac could transfer here. We both feel she could be of use." "I have no problem with that. How would you convince the Joint Chiefs, assuming you had to?" "Mac's a Marine. There are more Marines on base than SEALs. It makes sense that the Marines have a JAG officer of their own around. It would also mean having an officer entirely devoted to JAG duties, increasing the efficiency of the JAG work around here and probably the quality as well. It'll lessen my chance of a nervous breakdown. Colonel MacKenzie has extensive experience as both a litigator and a judge in DC; she would have no problem handling her duties, and it would free up a position at JAG headquarters to give another lawyer the chance to gain experience at trying the sort of high-profile cases the Colonel has been handling until now. The staff at JAG headquarters has been pretty unchanging over the last few years; people need change to get an opportunity to grow. Except around here, where things change on a day-to-day basis, and no-one has a long enough life expectancy to get complacent." The General, rather than replying to Harm directly, looked towards his telephone. "Mr Chairman?" Despite the fact that there was no way on Earth the Chairman could see them, Harm and Mac both came to attention at the General's words, causing him to smile. He seemed about to apologise, but was cut off before he could do more than open his mouth. "I'm convinced. Rabb's been begging for help almost since the day you got him. And I've heard great things about what Rabb and MacKenzie can achieve when they work together. Sort out the details yourselves. Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie, consider yourself assigned to the SGC." "Aye, sir." "It would probably be best if you report directly to the General, seeing as the whole point of this endeavour is to save the Captain time. But you will of course bear in mind that in the few months he has been at the SGC he has gained a great deal of experience in matters on interstellar law, and his guidance will probably be valuable to you." Each of the three officers in the room was intelligent enough to recognise the vague reference to Harm's Apollonic knowledge. Nor was it lost on them that Mac would not be in Harm's direct chain of command, however often their paths might cross in the line of duty. Whether or not that had been planned deliberately was impossible to tell.  
  
"You realise we're going to have to go back to DC to get my stuff. And that means facing the Admiral." They were back in Harm's quarters, Mac lying in Harm's arms, their chaperone (though, to judge by his actions, not the sort of chaperone that would want to prevent any inappropriate behaviour) keeping their feet warm. "Is that gonna be a problem for you." "I hope not. It might be a bit awkward, though." "I could ask Sturgis to clear out your office before he leaves work tomorrow. If he didn't do it until the Admiral had left for the weekend, it wouldn't look like he was taking sides." "That just feels like the coward's way out." "You realise if you go soon, I can't go with you. At least not to the office." "Why not?" "Two gunshot wounds to the chest ring any bells? You may have gotten an extra day through going back in time, but for the rest of us it was only yesterday." "Please don't remind me. I'm not sure which was worse; seeing you shot, or seeing you talk to the guy as if nothing had happened." "Speaking of whom, your first duty as SG JAG is probably going to be sorting out the mess he's in. It wouldn't be fair to let the kid go to jail for something a Goa'uld did, or for something he did in an attempt to stop the snakes from getting what they wanted." "Harm, he shot you." "Mac, if I ever saw a guy I was certain Apollo and his friends wanted alive, I'm not sure I wouldn't go as far as killing him and vapourising the body to stop that from happening." "Vapourising the body?" "A dead body can be reanimated by Goa'uld technology. I've seen it happen before. Even happened to me once. Making sure there's no body is the only way to reliably prevent that." "Can we change the subject?" "Sure. What do you think of this plan? Assuming Janet clears me to get on a plane, we fly back to DC tomorrow. I go back to my place and pack up the few things I've got there, you go to JAG to get your personal things from your office. Then we drive up to my grandmother's farm, taking Dad with us, spend the weekend, then stop off in DC on the way back, so you can pack up your apartment and start sorting things out for moving here." "You wanna take your Dad? You want to give your grandmother a heart attack or something?" "Mac, as much as I hate to say it, she's not going to be around much longer. There's a good chance she won't last long enough for me to give her any great-grandchildren. Giving her her son back would be the greatest gift I can ever give her, and it would give her some happiness, even if she couldn't tell anyone else." "You'll have to clear it with the General. And your Dad." "Of course. But you don't have any problem with the rest of the plan?" "None at all. Though I think our friend here may not like being left on his own for the whole weekend, and getting him off a plane at Andrews could be interesting." "We'll think of something in the morning. In the meantime, I seem to remember the General interrupting something earlier."  
  
When Harm awoke the next morning, it took him several minutes to convince himself that he wasn't still dreaming. He was lying on his back, a warm weight covering the left-hand-side of his chest, though not putting any pressure on his still-dodgy left arm. Mac's head was tucked under his chin, and he could feel her heart against his chest, beating in time with his own. He felt the pattern of her breathing change as she slowly came awake, stretching like a cat as she did so. He smiled, moving slightly to press a soft kiss to the top of her head. "Morning." She shifted round and raised her head slightly, looking up into his eyes. "Morning. What time is it?" He raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Isn't that usually my line?" "I think my internal clock's been knocked out of whack." She glared at him when he gave a self-satisfied grin. "Must be all the time-travel and alien technology." "You're sure about that, Marine?" The glare intensified. "Positive. Now are you gonna feed me or what?" "As long as you're happy with what the commissary has to offer. Though judging by the amount you managed to put away yesterday, that shouldn't be a problem." He gently pushed her off him. "Get dressed. The General's usually in his office by now, I'll call down and see if he'll give us the weekend off." "You never did tell me what time it is." "0705." "The General's in his office at this time in the morning?" "Usually. We get teams coming home at all hours, prevents there being a mad rush for the gate at any one time of day. Even if there's no-one due back, the General goes down to his office to get some paperwork done. When the base gets really active he doesn't get much peace and quiet. Now shoo." Sighing gently, Mac got out of bed and made her way over to Harm's small bathroom. She stopped and the doorway and looked back, not having heard anything to suggest Harm had picked up the phone yet. He was staring at her with a slightly glazed expression. "Anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare?" "Huh?" "Get your mind out of the gutter, Rabb. You have a call to make." "Oh, yeah." He cleared his throat. "Right." Smiling, Mac shook her head and disappeared into the bathroom. Shaking his head violently to rid his mind of images that would not be appropriate during a conversation with a two-star, Harm picked up the phone.  
  
For the first time in a while, Mac was apprehensive about pushing open the glass doors that would take her into the JAG bullpen. During the flight from Colorado Harm and Mac had settled on a story that would suffice to explain to most of the people at JAG why Mac was leaving, but with what the Admiral had already seen, it would be impossible to avoid telling him the truth. Mac was still not entirely certain how Harm had persuaded both Janet and the General to let him leave the base with only her and his father to keep an eye on him. And of course their furry friend, who seemed willing to submit to being transported in a wooden crate if it meant remaining with the two of them. How Harm had got authorisation for that, as well as to take his father home, Mac doubted she'd ever know. The working day at JAG was drawing to a close, the result of a combination of the time difference and the flight time between Colorado and DC. They had also diverted en route from the airport to collect some of Harm's belongings from his apartment, then to Mac's place so Mac could give the two men instructions on which things of hers to start packing while she was at Headquarters. Mac had to take a deep breath before entering the bullpen. She could see Bud and Harriet talking near her office, and knew that she would have to face them. There was a good chance they'd be hurt by her decision, however reasonable her cooked-up story made it sound. Her leaving would rob AJ of his godmother as well as his godfather. She pushed open the doors and walked over to her office. The noise level in Ops decreased as people watched her, curious as to her reason for being there. Scuttlebutt had her at the bedside of a critically-wounded Harmon Rabb. "Ma'am! How's Captain Rabb?" Few people even pretended they weren't listening once Bud posed that question. "He's improving, but he's never going to be back to how he was." How he was before that snake got into his head, anyway. "The doctor who's done all his check-ups since he left JAG has experience with his condition." Not much, but more than anyone else. "He'll be remaining under her medical supervision," part-time, "Which means he won't be coming back to JAG." "Ma'am?" This from Harriet, "Shouldn't you be with him? After he was shot like that, I'd assumed you wouldn't be leaving his side." "I'm here to speak with the Admiral about that, and how I'm going to get more time to spend with Harm." Well, not so much speak with him, as tell him what the done-deal was. She walked past them, and deposited her cover on her desk. Then she walked over to Coates. "Is he available?" "Yes ma'am." She buzzed the intercom. "Sir, Colonel MacKenzie's here to see you." "Send her in." The tone of his voice suggested all was not well in the Admiral's world. Which in turn suggested he knew, or at least had a good idea, what this conversation was to be about.  
  
"At ease, Mac. Take a seat." She sat, forcing herself not to fidget with the bottom of her uniform jacket. "Colonel, would you care to guess what I found on my desk when I came in to work this morning?" "No, sir." "It concerns you." Mac still said nothing. The Admiral nodded to himself, then stood to stare out of the window into the middle distance. "Are you not happy here, Mac?" "I haven't been happy since before Harm's murder trial, sir. I just didn't realise it until I saw him collapse against that filing cabinet." "I see." "I'm not sure you do, sir." "Then how about you try explaining it to me?" "I'm not sure even I completely understand it myself, sir. But Harm was unhappy for a long time before the whole murder trial came up, partly because of your sudden complete loss of faith in him, partly because of the friction between us that caused. And when Harm's unhappy, I'm unhappy, though I don't normally realise it until afterwards." "So you blame me for this whole situation." "Yes sir." He sucked in a breath at her brutal honesty, "But that's not why I'm leaving JAG." "Why are you leaving JAG, then?" "Because Harm needs me. He's been through a lot, and he needs more support than he can get from his team, even though they're incredibly close. He's got a lot of abilities that hardly anyone else has, and no-one has in his combination. So he's overworked on top of physical and emotional exhaustion. He needs me. And I never thought I'd say this about anyone, but I need him. So I'm going to take over some of his work, which will give him more time to relax and give me some experiences I'd never imagined possible. And we'll be together." "It's a career dead-end for you, Mac." There was a note of defeat in his voice. He knew there was no way to change her mind. "It's the opposite of that, sir. And even if it was a career dead-end, that wouldn't matter. There are more important things in the world than my career, and I'm not just talking about my relationship with Harm." "You could have been the first female JAG, Mac. Moving to a classified position at this point throws any chances of that out of the window." "That's not important to me, sir. It may have been once, I'm not sure. But it certainly isn't now." The Admiral looked back at her for the first time since he moved to the window. "I guess all I can do is wish you good luck in your new post." "Yes sir. Thank you, sir." "And tell Rabb that if he ever hurts you, I'll hunt him down, no matter where he tries to hide." "I appreciate the offer, sir, but I think I've hurt Harm more than he could ever hurt me. He just hid it so well I couldn't tell." "If you say so. Clear out your office before you leave. Dismissed, Colonel." "Aye aye, sir." She stood up, came to attention, did an about-face and left. Chegwidden stared at the door she closed behind her, an uncomfortable feeling nagging at him. It was several minutes before he realised why. When Harm had left JAG to go flying, he had tried to tell the Admiral, as tradition dictated, that it was an honour serving with him, but he had cut him off. This time, it hadn't even seemed to occur to Mac to say it. And he had no-one to blame but himself.  
  
"You're leaving." Mac looked up to see Sturgis standing in the doorway of her office. Bud and Harriet had left the area by the time she had finished with the Admiral, and so she had been able to get started packing her things up without having to answer any questions. "Yes. I'm going to take on some of Harm's duties." She took her Marine Corps recruiting poster down from the wall. The difference in colour of the wall behind it from the wall around it showed just how long it had been hanging there. Too long. One should never get too comfortable in a military billet. "Place won't be the same without you." "It wasn't the same without Harm, but people got used to it." "I guess." He looked at her thoughtfully. "I've never seen you like this before." "Like what?" "Completely happy. Even the part of you that doesn't want to leave is happy, because of the reason you're leaving." He smiled at her. "I'm willing to bet Harm is happier than I've ever seen him at the moment, too. Where is he, anyway?" "He's at my apartment. He and you-know-who are packing some of my stuff." "Got him whipped already? Quick work, Colonel." "Squids recognise Marine authority. You did from the beginning." "I'm sorry?" "Our little conversation. You never let it slip to Harm." "That's because I'm an officer and a gentleman, not because I'm scared of you." "Then you admit you are scared of me?" "You're twisting my words, Counselor. I've got work to do, I'll leave you to it. You and Harm keep in touch. I've got an idea of what he's been doing since he left, and I'm gonna need regular check-ins to stop myself from worrying about the two of you." "Don't worry, Sturgis. We won't be strangers." "Ma'am?" Harriet had caught the very tail end of the conversation, crossing the bullpen to make further enquiries about Harm. "You're leaving?" Her voice was shrill and somewhat upset. Numerous people stopped what they were doing to look over at Mac's office. "Yes, Harriet, I'm leaving. Someone needs to do Harm's work." No particular reason it couldn't be Harm, but as far as Harriet was concerned, he'd just been seriously injured. "Will you be coming back when Captain Rabb's recovered?" "Harm's been doing more work than is good for him. Even when he fully resumes his duties, his doctor doesn't want him doing everything he's been doing up to this point. Having me around will take some of the load off. If he returns to his old workload, he's headed for a burnout within a couple of years. I can stop that happening." In more ways than one. "What about little AJ? He'll never get to see his godparents." "Harm and I will come visit, Harriet. It's not as if we'll be in another galaxy." Apparently, the number of times SGC personnel had actually left the galaxy could be counted on the fingers of one hand with room to spare. "And it's not like we've never been deployed before." "It's never been permanent before, ma'am." Mac had continued to pack her things away as they spoke. As her transfer was effective immediately, she didn't have to worry about finishing off old cases. They would be shared out among the remaining attorneys, or perhaps given to whoever replaced her. That was no longer any concern of Mac's.  
  
"You gentlemen having fun?" Harm and his dad, so alike when viewed side-by-side that it was creepy, were seated in front of Mac's television. As Mac crossed over to see what they were watching, Harm grabbed the remote and switched the TV off hurriedly, blushing slightly as he did so. Mac looked over at Harm Sr. "Has your son been corrupting you?" "I wouldn't call it corrupting, exactly." "Oh? And what would you call it?" "Enlightening." "Harm, what were you watching?" "Nothing." "Harm." Harm's response was an inaudible mutter. "What was that?" "The Powerpuff Girls. Happy?" Mac choked back a laugh at the thought of two fully-grown men, fighter pilots no less, watching cartoons as some sort of family bonding technique, then directed the conversation in a direction which might actually be useful. "Did you call your grandmother?" "Yes." "And?" "She's expecting us some time tonight. If we're late, she'll wait up. She says she doesn't need much sleep. I've told her I've got a surprise for her. She said it would be very hard to surprise her at her age. I told her this one would definitely be a surprise, and she said she'd believe it when she saw it." "What did you say to that?" "I told her she probably wouldn't. She just laughed at went off to make cookies." Harm Sr grinned at that. "Some things never change. Sounds like Mom is one of them." Harm took over again, giving a weird sort of double-team effect. "I thought we'd head out as soon as you're ready to. We'll need to come back here before going back to the Mountain, so you don't need to be completely packed. You'll have to drive, though. My arm still won't work properly and Dad doesn't have a valid driver's license." Mac smiled. "I think I can handle driving, as long as one of you tells me where to go. Just let me get some clothes together, then let's get this show on the road!"  
  
It was well after eight when Mac pulled up outside the farmhouse. The journey had been cheerful, as father and son regailed each other with tails of their exploits in the line of duty, in some ways seeming more like long- lost brothers. The cheer, however, hid a certain tension in the air, neither man entirely certain of what their reception would be. The green furry creature, curled up between the two men on the back seat, hidden from prying eyes by an old blanket and the tinted glass of the SUV's windows, was the only one in the car not affected by the tension. It was asleep, and looked like it was having a very enjoyable dream, sighing contentedly every so often.  
  
The porch light went on as the car came to a halt, and the door opened to reveal Harm's grandmother. Exchanging a slightly nervous glance with his father Harm got out of the car, closing the door carefully behind him and walking over to the house, taking the steps up to the porch two and a time and embracing his grandmother. "Harmon Rabb Junior, what's all this about? The only surprise I've seen so far is you getting out of the back seat. Surely whoever drove you out here can come in for some cookies?" "That's part of the surprise, Grandma." "My grandson forgetting his manners?" Not an octogenarian for nothing, she had noticed that her grandson seemed to have something pressing on his mind, and that he wasn't certain what her reaction to it would be. "Harm, whatever you want to tell me, just come out with it." "Okay." His eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond her right shoulder. "You know a few years ago I went to Russia to find the truth about what happened to Dad?" "Yes. You said you found it, and that you finally had your peace. What happened to change that?" "I can't tell you the details. Partly because they're classified, partly because I don't think you'd believe me. But the day before yesterday, I discovered the real truth." "What?" There was a slight tinge of fear in her voice. This was, after all, her son they were talking about. "The Russian soldiers didn't kill Dad. He was rescued in the nick of time by a team of US military officers acting slightly outside their orders." Sarah Rabb said nothing, swallowing a lump in her throat. She knew her grandson well. There was more to come, including the bit that would really surprise her. "Grandma, we have certain technology at our disposal that allows us to do things most people don't think possible." He was still fixated on that point beyond her shoulder. "The team were people in the Air Force, Navy and Marines at the moment who took it upon themselves to go back in time and save Dad's life, bringing him back with them." Only now did Harm dare to bring his eyes to meet those of his grandmother.  
  
She had a very peculiar look on her face, hard to describe. A mixture of complete and total disbelief, and the conviction that her grandson would never lie or joke about a thing like this. She reached out and gripped Harm's arms to steady herself, only to withdraw back when Harm winced at the contact with his left arm. She stared up at him. There were tears in his blue-green eyes, but not of despair or sorrow. Tears of the joyous emotional relief of a small boy. And at the sight of them, the old woman resolutely put aside her disbelief, as the words of the Bard flitted into her mind. 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.' "Where is my son?" Her words were quiet and clear, and Harm knew she had accepted what he told her. Sometimes you just have to accept that life is strange, and go with the flow. The shock would probably not sink in until she actually saw her son. Harm gave her a long, searching look, then turned to look back at the car, calling out as he did so, "You can come out now."  
  
The green furry thing came awake at Harm's call, and bounded out of the car as Harm Senior opened the door, dashing to rub itself against Harm's legs. Sarah Rabb allowed herself a few moments to be startled by this, then looked up at the sound of two car doors slamming shut. Her eyes rested for several seconds on the young woman who emerged from the driver's seat, mentally comparing her to the descriptions Harm had given over the years of Mac. Concluding that this was indeed the young woman in question, her eyes moved to the other figure. Where they stopped.  
  
For a few seconds, she did not breathe. She simply stared, unblinking, at her son, who in turn stared, unblinking, at her. In an instant, he was in front her her, Harm stepping out of the way to permit their reunion, nearly falling over his furry leg-warmer, who was by this time purring loud enough to wake the dead. Mac came up the steps at a more sedate pace, her eyes fixated on the three as she witnessed a family reunion of the type her family would never have gone in for. As she reached the top of the steps, Harm drew her into his arms, her back against his chest, and rested his chin on the top of her head as he watched his grandmother reach out a disbelieving, trembling hand to touch her son's face. Harm Sr reached up and grasped his mother's hand in his own. "It's me, Mom. It's really me." Grandma Sarah let out a nervous laugh. "I've heard of sons losing touch with their parents, but this is ridiculous." Her nervous humour elicited laughs from all those present, and the furry creature temporarily abandoned Harm to rub up against the old woman, rumbling like a steam engine. Distracted by this from her complete astonishment at her son's presence, not to mention the fact that he was alive and the same age as his own son, she reached down to rub the creature's head, only to jerk back in alarm when it became clear to her that the creature's greenness was not a trick of the light. This was the last straw for her, as she nearly fell against her son's chest, shaking like a leaf.  
  
They had semi-expected something like this to happen, and were not unprepared for it. Harm gently nudged their furry friend away from his grandmother while Mac took her by the shoulders, leading her inside while the two men remained on the porch, looking out into the night. Harm looked over at his father and smiled ruefully. "Well, she didn't have a heart attack." His father continued to stare into the darkness. "Dad, what's wrong?" "She looks so old. I guess I had always realised you'd grow up without me, though just how much was a shock. But Mom was always young and vital. She had to be, bringing me up on her own. Seeing her as she is now is just. unsettling. I guess I tried to age you in my mind, but Mom was always just. Mom." Harm gave a short laugh. "I do the same thing. I don't see Mom that often, but when I do, she always looks older than the picture I have of her in my head." They lapsed into silence after that, but both men let their thoughts run in the same direction.  
  
"Are you okay, Ma'am?" Mac sat Sarah Rabb down at her kitchen table, hovering next to her, concern written all over her face. Mrs Rabb looked up blankly at the younger woman. "This is real, isn't it? Little Harm brought me my son home, just like he always wanted to." "Yes Ma'am." "You don't have to call me Ma'am. Harm's told me so much about you it's like we're family already. Call me Grandma. That's what I tell most people your age. Ma'am just seems so formal. Like I was back to being a Lieutenant's wife talking to enlisted personnel." She was rambling, her mind desperately wandering where it would in order to get away from settling on the unbelievable truth of what was going on. Mac spoke with a soothing voice. "It's alright, Grandma. You can let yourself believe. This is really happening." "I believe it all right. I'm just having trouble realising it's actually happening to me. There's a difference between the two, though right now I'm not sure what it is. And now I'm crying," she was, "And what must you think of me?" "I don't think I'd handle it this well if I were you. And you should have seen the expression on Harm's face when he realised what had happened. I don't think I'll ever see anything quite like it again. I definitely hadn't seen anything like that before." "How are you involved in this?" "I was in the team that went back to get your son. I helped convince him we were telling the truth. To start with, he thought it was some sort of Russian mind trick." "What changed his mind?" "I'm not sure. I think it was Sturgis' discomfort at Harm Sr calling him 'Sir'." "Sturgis Turner? That sort of thing would make him uncomfortable. Always very aware of what's right, young Sturgis. He came up here for a couple of weekends when he and Harm had leave from the Academy and his father was overseas." "Do you want to be alone for a while? This must be a lot to take in." "No, don't leave. If I'm alone I'll start thinking I imagined all of this." "You want me to call them in?" "No, leave them be a while. I'd imagine there are things they haven't taken the time to discuss yet. This is a good place for talking to people, and they've both always been comfortable here. Have a cookie, they'll come in when they're good and ready."  
  
"Tom said your Mom remarried." "Yeah. After all the POWs came home from Nam and you didn't. That was the last straw for her. She'd never had much hope, and that just convinced her you'd died in Nam." "A used car salesman?" Harm laughed. "That's what all the guys who flew with you call him. He's one of the senior VPs at Chrysler." "He take good care of her?" "Yeah. He's a good man. He supported my attempts to find you in Russia when Mom was upset by it. She'd come to terms with the idea that you'd died in Nam, and didn't want me opening old wounds, but Frank knew I had to lay it to rest, for her sake as well as my own. Even though I'd never given him a chance to get close to me as a kid." "I wanted you to have a father, even if it wasn't me." He was still staring into the middle distance, as if trying to convince himself of the truth of what he was saying. "I know. Before I went to Russia Mom let me hear the letter tape where you said that. Frank was good to me, but he was never a father to me in my mind, although he thinks of me as a son." "You keep in touch with your Mom?" Harm bit back a laugh. This was one of the parts of having a father he'd missed out on up til now. "Not as much as she'd like. I don't want to worry her, and when I call her she hears things in my voice if I'm stressed, or if there's something going on I don't want her to know about." "So calling her tonight probably wouldn't be a good idea." He let out a deep sigh. "She can't know about me. It would make everything too complicated. There's the security concerns." "And the twenty-year age gap." Harm Sr looked over at his son, a ghost of a smile coming to his lips. "There is that." Harm turned to look in through the window. Both Mac and his grandmother seemed to be enjoying cookies, chatting to each other easily. Their entrance probably wouldn't disturb her too much now, so he looked back at his dad and gestured towards the door. "After you."  
  
Mac looked up as the two men entered, flashing Harm an evil grin. "Your grandmother's a wealth of information, Harm. I'm sure your team would be interested in hearing some of this." Harm entered into the spirit of the conversation, leaning over Mac and smiling at her. "Really. What a shame they're never going to hear anything Grandma Sarah tells you." "But it would be such a shame for them not to know." "Well, I'm not going to tell them, and you're not going to tell them, so there's no way from them to find out." "What makes you think I'm not going to pass on these fascinating stories?" "I always believed Marines had a natural instinct for self-preservation." "Fighting words, Flyboy. I could take you." "Don't forget I'm a SEAL now. And I was thinking more along the lines of burying you so deep in mundane paperwork that you never see the sun again." "Harmon Rabb!" Both men's heads jerked up, twin guilty expressions on their faces, and Mac had difficulty keeping a straight face. Sarah Rabb looked at her grandson with mock disapproval. "That's no way to speak to a lady." "No ma'am!" Mac couldn't help it then. She cracked up completely, and Harm shot her a dazzling grin. "I see you two are getting on fine." "We both have to put up with you, and misery loves company." "Very funny, Marine." "I'm a funny lady." "When you two are done flirting, would someone care to explain the. creature. trying to knock my table over?" The green furry creature was, in true feline fashion, rubbing its neck against the table leg with a contented look on its face and a purr in its throat which made Mac wonder how she had ever considered it bear-like. Being as it was several times larger than your average house-cat, the motion of its neck caused the table to rock backwards and forwards. Wanting to see how he handled the situation, Mac gave Harm absolutely no help. "It's a very rare species of big cat. Only a few people in the whole world know it exists, let alone have seen one. It made friends with Mac on a mission, and latched onto me as well when I joined up with her. It's been following us around everywhere ever since. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to tell anyone about it, it's the sort of thing people think is crazy unless they've seen one for themselves." "Is it dangerous?" Sarah Rabb knew quite well her lawyer grandson wasn't really telling her anything, but could accept that. "You don't have anything to worry about." Again, he hadn't actually answered the question, but he had told her what she needed to know.  
  
Harm Sr had not really entered into the conversation. There was nothing for him to say. He couldn't talk about how he came to be there, and he'd come forward in time so recently that there were no obvious topics of conversation for him. But he was content to watch his son and the Lieutenant Colonel. He'd missed out on enough of his son's life that he had no problem watching it play out in front of him like this. And it gave him good insight into the character of the man he had last seen as a five-year- old boy.  
  
Harm took a seat next to Mac and watched her put away more of his grandmother's cookies than you would think a single person could eat, especially a single person with a figure like Mac's. She noticed him watching, and waved one of the cookies under his nose. "You want one, Flyboy? Or is it not nutritious enough for you?" He grabbed it out of her hand and crammed it into his mouth, giving her a toothy, crumby smile. He chewed for a few moments, then swallowed. "I think I'm working hard enough these days to burn off the calories. And with the amount of MREs I eat most weeks, I think I deserve a treat every now and then." "Like you didn't burn off calories at JAG and flying Tomcats?" "Not as many. And anyway, I never had a problem with cookies. It's the crap in those burgers you like so much and all the cholesterol in red meat I don't want to mess up my body with. I like my arteries as they are. And I even eat some red meat these days, because my system's gotten better at dealing with it." He was referring to his improved control over the normally unconscious workings of his body since he got Apollo's memories. Mac realised this, and gave him a small nod, supressing a shudder at the reference, a shudder she would not have been able to explain to Grandma Sarah.  
  
"Well," said Grandma Sarah after a couple of hours of meaningless chatter and banter, to which even Harm Sr had contributed after a while, talking to his mother with the easy familiarity of one who had never been away, "I think it's time to give these old bones a rest. You two can take the guest room and you," she looked into her son's eyes, "Can take your old room. A lot of your things are still there, though Little Harm moved some things around when he stayed there after his ramp strike." Without waiting for a response from any of the three, she left the room and could shortly be heard climbing the stairs. Harm looked at his father. "I didn't really move anything around. I didn't put any of my own stuff up because it would just have reminded me of what I'd lost when they took my wings. It might be a bit dusty, though. I know Grandma doesn't go in all that often." His father nodded. "Be good to have something familiar in a world I'm not used to yet. Hard to believe so much in this country could change in thirty- four years. I'll see you in the morning." He got up and left, leaving Harm, Mac and their companion alone in the kitchen. Mac threaded her fingers through Harm's, and stared at his hand. "Harm? Are you okay with us sharing a room in your grandmother's house?" He gave a soft laugh. "In case you didn't notice, it was her idea. It's not like we're sixteen-year-olds and she might walk in any minute. We don't have to do anything if you're not comfortable, but I like sleeping with you next to me." She smiled. "Let's go to bed, Harm." 


	2. Chapter 62

The morning dawned clear and cloudless, and the sunlight filtering in through the gap in the curtains gently roused Harm, who stretched on reflex as his mind stumbled towards wakefulness.  
  
As he stretched, he felt a twinge in his left arm as it resented being treated such. He sighed, the peaceful contentment he had felt ebbing away a little, and took a more conscious control of his body, careful not to over- extend his injured limb.  
  
It was at this point that he became aware that Mac was not where she should have been, sprawled against his side blearily coming awake. He took a moment to listen for the sound of the shower, which echoed throughout the whole house when in use, but heard nothing. He did however catch the scent of bacon being fried, and instantly knew where his Marine was to be found.  
  
"Good morning, Ladies."  
  
"Morning, Harm." Mac spoke through a mouthful of crispy-fried bacon. In front of her sat a plate laden with bacon, eggs and fried tomatoes. "I think Grandma's trying to fatten me up."  
  
"You told her it won't work, right?"  
  
"She says she likes a challenge."  
  
Harm smiled, and looked over at where his grandmother stood by the stove, chivvying bits of bacon. "Do I get anything?"  
  
"You get bacon and eggs, the same as everybody else. And none of your talk of cholesterol. This is good food, and I won't hear a word against it. There's nothing wrong with my arteries, and I've been eating real food all my life."  
  
"Yes Ma'am!" His grandmother presented him with a plate, then as he stood there proceeded to pile it high with food. As the pile grew, so did Harm's feeling of relief that his body had greater recuperative powers than it used to.  
  
When she finally stopped shovelling food, Harm went to the table to sit next to Mac, who was working through the contents of her plate with remarkable speed.  
  
"Hungry, are we?"  
  
"Starving." She grinned at him again. "But you should have seen how much your dad ate."  
  
"Where is he, anyway?"  
  
"Grandma sent him out to milk the cows. Apparently before the last time he shipped out he promised he'd help out more next time he came to the farm, and your grandmother has a long memory."  
  
"Don't I know it." He started to eat. "What do you want to do when you've finished eating?"  
  
"I was thinking you could show me around. I didn't get a chance to see any of this place in the dark last night, I'd like to see some of the things Grandma mentioned in her stories last night. Something about a tyre swing next to a stream?"  
  
Harm nearly choked at that. "She didn't."  
  
"She did." Her grin was evil now. "I have to say, I'm impressed. I'd always figured you more for the jumping off a barn type. The tyre swing shows originality."  
  
Harm drew himself up, a look of mock arrogance on his face. "I've always prided myself on originality when flying."  
  
"You don't have to tell me that, Harm, I've seen you fly, remember?"  
  
Their breakfast finished, they wandered down to the stream Harm's grandmother had mentioned to Mac, where the old tyre swing was still to be found, a little the worse for wear. Harm sat down, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree from which the tyre hung, staring down into the water. Mac sat down beside him. For several minutes neither spoke, simply enjoying the peacefulness of the place and listening to the bubbling of the stream.  
  
It was Harm who broke the silence. "You ever tickled for trout, Mac?"  
  
"Have I ever what?"  
  
"Tickled trout. It's a sort of fishing. It's mostly only kids that do it."  
  
"Harm, I grew up in Arizona. Fishing wasn't really a common pass-time."  
  
"You want to learn?"  
  
He seemed to be going somewhere with this, so she shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"  
  
"Okay, roll up your sleeves." He did so himself, lying down on the bank and staring into the part of the water which lay in the shadow of the tree. "Now watch what I do."  
  
She crouched down next to him to watch, fascinated by this side of him. Other than playing the guitar, she had never really seen him do anything that could easily be described as relaxing.  
  
He lowered his arm into the water, softly waggling his fingers as he did so. He lay there in silence, a look of intense concentration on his face. Mac saw, after a wait of about ten minutes, a small fish emerge from the weeds nearby and swim lazily between Harm's fingers, which he continuted to waft about in constant motion until the fish was practically in the palm of his hand. Then, quick as a flash, his fingers closed on the fish and he flicked it out of the water onto the bank, where a quick blow to the head from a handy stone killed it. As its death throes came to and end, Harm looked up at Mac.  
  
"And that, Marine, is how you tickle trout."  
  
He fixed his gaze back on the fish. "You make your hand act like a weed, constantly in motion, moved by the flowing water. It lulls the fish into a false sense of security. It thinks you're just another weed, and swims right into your hand. You have to keep the pretense going right up until the moment you make your move, otherwise it realises something is wrong and it's out of there in a flash, and you're left literally empty-handed.  
  
"You're not just talking about the fish, are you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Harm?"  
  
"With everything that happened yesterday, something got pushed out of our minds. Somone."  
  
"Sergei?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What does Sergei have to do with your analogy?"  
  
"Either he's doing what I was doing, or I have to do it to him to find out the truth."  
  
"You mean he could be deliberately maintaining the pretense of being your brother so that you keep trusting him right up until he makes a move against you?"  
  
"Yeah. Or he could know absolutely nothing, and I have to keep him trusting me in order to find out the truth. I think Sergei's somehow connected to the dreams I was having when I was trying to sort out my blood, but I'm not sure how. And I'm not sure how to find out. Damnit, Mac, everything I've found out in the last few days has just created a bunch of new questions I need answers to."  
  
"Harm, don't worry about it. Everything seems to have been happening without your forcing the issue. Just lay back and let it happen. Tickle trout, it looks relaxing. And," she had spied a lump of green fur moving towards them at speed, "providing more fish would probably keep our friend happy."  
  
Harm lifted his eyes to look at the approaching creature, and smiled. "Well, at least we don't have to worry about him developing a false sense of security. Did you see how he reacted to the General when he interrupted us? I used to think my Annie was over-protective, but she's got nothing on this little guy."  
  
"See? You have nothing to worry about. So tell me, how did you learn to tickle trout in the first place?"  
  
"You ever read the Swallows and Amazons books.?"  
  
A/N: Thanks for all the positive feedback for the story so far! It was really nice to read, and I'm glad to know there are people who are enjoying this, and especially people who think Stargate/JAG crossover well. Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou!  
  
A/N2: I'm English, so I have no idea what time of year one might find trout in a stream in Pennsylvania. I just needed it for the metaphor. 


	3. Chapter 63

Morning languidly passed into afternoon, with Harm and Mac only leaving the stream for a short time to partake of the light lunch prepared by Harm Sr under his mother's supervision, when they informed the older lady that they hoped to get enough fish to give everyone at least a small portion in the evening.  
  
Their endeavours in this regard were not helped by the fact that Harm was a sucker for the pleading blinking of beautiful eyes, and whenever Mac took a turn at tickling trout and left him to supervise their catch, chatting to each other about nothing in particular as they did so, at least one fish would always mysteriously vanished, to be replaced by a smug look on a green face and a deep, rumbling purr.  
  
Only at one point did Mac actually catch Harm in the act, as she turned to face him with a freshly-caught, relatively large trout. He didn't notice her turn round, and started guiltily when she cleared her throat and looked pointedly at the fishtail hanging out of their furry companion's mouth.  
  
"If you're like this with him, what are you going to do when we have kids?"  
  
Harm stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, taken aback by her casual assumption that kids were in their future. Of course they had their baby deal, but that had only been for one. He liked the sound of the plural coming from her lips.  
  
He shook his head violently, aware that if he allowed himself to dwell on the image of a pregnant Mac sitting by the fire in the farmhouse with a two- year-old on her lap he'd never snap out of it, which might not go down too well, and shot her a brilliant grin.  
  
"I guess the big bad Marine is going to have to keep me in line."  
  
"In other words, I have to be the bad guy in front of the kids."  
  
His grin grew wider. "I could make it worth your while when the kids aren't around." he trailed off, suggestively raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Get your mind out of the gutter!"  
  
"I was thinking of somewhere more comfortable."  
  
"Harm!" She was looking past him now.  
  
"What?"  
  
"How many fish were there two minutes ago?"  
  
"I'm not sure, I didn't count." he turned around, "But I'm almost sure there were more than that."  
  
He moved his gaze to the right, and it was met by a very smug grin.  
  
"I'm starting to remember why I'm a dog person."  
  
"Harm, dogs steal food too."  
  
"But they at least look guilty about it afterwards."  
  
Despite the feline intervention, Harm and Mac had caught themselves a reasonable haul by the time dusk set in and they had to head back to the house to present the fish for Grandma Sarah's inspection. There were too many trout for them to carry them by hand, and they didn't trust a certain someone enough to risk leaving the fish unsupervised and make two trips. Or maybe they did trust him, just not in a good way.  
  
Harm solved the problem by removing his shirt, a solution with which Mac had no problems whatsoever, despite its being a very nice shirt and probably not deserving of being covered in slimy fish scales. Mac felt this way for two reasons.  
  
First, Harm had a very nice chest. A very nice chest indeed.  
  
Secondly, he turned out to have slightly ticklish sides. This would not have been a problem for him, or a cause of amusement to Mac, were it not for the Green Fish Stealer, who had by this time recovered enough from post- digestive lethargy to have an apparently boundless amount of energy and a not-at-all boundless method of running. It leapt around like a housecat following a sprig of catnip being waved in front of it on a string, and its leaps frequently caused it to brush past Harm's side, its fur coming into contact with Harm's bare skin and making his whole upper body twitch, and Harm gasp at the sensation, much to Mac's amusement. She called him on it as they neared the house.  
  
"Big Bad Fighter Pilot can handle a little fur"?  
  
"I can handle fur Mac, just not when it's brushing lightly against my side like that. If the contact was firmer I wouldn't have a problem. It's the light touch, not the fur."  
  
"So if I were to do this." she trailed the very tips of her fingers against his left side, the one closest to her, "You'd have the same reaction?" She smiled, with a slightly evil glint in her eyes.  
  
He gasped, and turned his head to look down at her.  
  
"Mac, if you don't want to be the bad guy, you might want to rethink what you're doing at the moment."  
  
She removed her hand. "I'll bear that in mind."  
  
Harm wasn't certain that tone of voice boded well, but by this time they had reached the kitchen door, and it was time to change the subject. 


	4. Chapter 64

Sunday morning did not start as well for Harm as Saturday had, probably because it started quite a lot earlier. Not long after five he was jolted from sleep by a heavy weight landing on his chest and a sandpaper-like tongue licking his face. It was accompanied by gentle laughter from the doorway. Next to him, Mac continued to sleep, oblivious to what was going on around her.  
  
"I think your friend wants you to get up."  
  
"Dad? What time is it?"  
  
"0510. Rise and shine."  
  
"Why do I get the feeling I've been volunteered for something?"  
  
"You're a lawyer. You have highly trained deductive reasoning skills."  
  
"No, that's O'Neill."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing." He gently pushed his living alarm clock off him. "I'll be down in a minute."  
  
The milking did not take as long as Harm had been expecting. But then, he hadn't done it with any help since he came back from Vietnam when he was sixteen. They fed the chickens when they were done, before letting the cows out to pasture.  
  
As the light grew steadily stronger, they each clambered onto the sturdiest part of the pasture fence and sat there watching the cows.  
  
"Dad?" Harm's voice was hoarse. He was not really sure how to go about this conversation.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Harm Sr looked over at his son. "Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
"Everyone you served with except Admiral Boone is either retired or dead. The retired ones are twenty years older than you, and none have the security clearance to even know you're still alive. A few days ago you were saved from almost certain death by something that shouldn't be possible. You're the same age as your only son, and look enough like him to be mistaken for him. And because I did some fairly high-profile things in my career, and know half the Navy from either flying or cases, it means you can't move around much. Your wife made peace with your death and remarried years ago, and is now twenty years older than you. All your time in Russia as a POW means that time travel issues aside, you can't really say you've got much of a Naval career ahead of you. The only place you can really go is the SGC."  
  
"When you put it like that." Harm Sr stared out over the countryside in front of them. Then he grinned back at his son. "I've still got more than I had this time a week ago."  
  
"Isn't dreaming of home better than being home and it all being different?"  
  
"Perhaps. But I always knew if I got home things would have changed. My friends would have been promoted and moved on. Your Mom would have moved on. I can kid myself a little, but even in my dreams there was reality. I knew I could never completely come back. I think what I've got here is pretty much a best-case scenario, if you think about how my life's gone so far."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"Your Mom can't know I'm alive, so there's no awkward reunion. I get to see you grandmother again; maybe take care of her some. I can see the man you grew up to be, know the good things you've done in your life, and know I'm partly responsible for them, though mostly not for the reasons I'd like. From what I've seen of you and the Colonel, I think I may get some grandchildren soon. And."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And now I'm a pilot who's flown among the stars." He laughed. "I've gone from captivity to the greatest freedom I can imagine. When I was working in the Russian mines, you could look up the shafts during the day and see the stars, like when you look up a chimney. The stars are freedom, Son. It's ironic that the SGC would give me the freedom of the universe and at the same time cut me off from my own planet, but the way I see it, the universe is bigger. Mom lives alone, so I can come up and see her sometimes, bluff people into thinking I'm you if they see me. And for the rest of the time, I can fly. Tom and I spoke to the General about it, and he spoke to the President. I can still fly, and when the day comes I can't fly any more, I can get a post on another planet, or as a non-flying CAG on a starship. Even if I end up flying a desk in the Cheyenne mountain, I'll be doing something important, and I'll be able to keep an eye on my kid. What more could I want?"  
  
"A semblance of a normal life."  
  
"We're Naval Aviators, Harm. We gave up any chance of a normal life the minute they pinned on our wings." He smiled. "Most of your pals would have had their fathers at their Winging. You had to settle for me being there when you took out an alien spaceship."  
  
"So you don't regret being here?"  
  
"The way it was explained to me, if your friends hadn't come get me, I'd be lying in an unmarked grave in the Russian tiaga. This has got to be an improvement on that. Do I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't gone down that day? Of course. But I realised something about a year after I was transferred to Russia. If I hadn't been hit that day, I might have been hit a few days later, and that time I might not have been able to get out. It's no good second-guessing anything in my life. I'd go completely insane."  
  
Harm nodded at that, understanding. He looked back at the house, and noticed that there were some lights on upstairs. "Looks like the ladies are up and about. Feel like going and getting bossed around for a while?"  
  
"Sure, why not? Being bossed around by Mom makes me feel like I never left. She's not sure how to treat me, so she's treating me like she did when I was a teenager."  
  
"What did the two of you talk about yesterday while Mac and I were fishing?"  
  
"You, mostly. And she told me a little about people I used to know in the town. I gave her the basics on what happened to me, but nothing after I escaped. She understands I can't talk about it, and didn't make it awkward."  
  
"She's good at that."  
  
"Yeah, I know." 


	5. Chapter 65

A hearty breakfast in the kitchen was followed by a pointed look in Harm's direction from his grandmother and the remark, "I wouldn't mind being able to check whether my barn's the same size inside as outside. I was wondering whether you two boys would care to clean it out for me. You can put the stuff back when I'm done." Harm smothered a smile, but could not respond before his dad jumped in.  
  
"Mom! I said I'd help out more, but that barn's huge!"  
  
"Which is why I can't clean it out by myself. Now git, both of you."  
  
Harm Sr seemed to be about to protest again, but Harm gave a deep sigh and put down his fork, swallowing his last mouthful of bacon. "She's not gonna give up, Dad, we may as well do as she says. Mac, you wanna come supervise?"  
  
Something in his voice suggested to Mac that things were not exactly as they seemed, and she smiled at him. "Of course. The Navy can't do anything without the Marines."  
  
"The Marines just slow us down so our movements can be seen by the naked eye."  
  
"You keep telling yourself that." She stood up, and carried her plate over to the sink, where Grandma Sarah took it from her.  
  
"Well, if you're all going, go. I need to clean up in here."  
  
"Yes Ma'am!" The three all said it simultaneously, then burst out laughing.  
  
"Doesn't look like she's been in here recently. The little door's rusted shut."  
  
At that moment, something collided with said door. It rebounded off it and landed in a heap on the ground, into which it seemed to blend, becoming a grassy hillock. Harm Sr looked at it with a raised eyebrow as it started to rumble, as if some sort of earthquake were in progress.  
  
"That guy has way too much energy. And if even he can't open that door, Mom definitely hasn't been in there recently. So why's she need the barn cleared now?"  
  
"That's not the only door, Dad."  
  
Harm walked over to the huge barn doors and undid the latch.  
  
"Why'd she be using these doors?"  
  
Harm grinned and threw the doors open. "She might not use these doors. Doesn't mean no-one does."  
  
"My god," Harm Sr stood transfixed at the sight in front of him, "You did it. You actually did it."  
  
The sun poured through the open doors to reflect off the yellow paint covering the old biplane, giving it a strange, ethereal appearance.  
  
"Sorry we couldn't do it together, but you weren't around and I needed the therapy after my ramp strike."  
  
His father didn't appear to hear him. He stepped forward, reaching out to run his hands over the lower starboard wing. A look of wonder, familiar to Mac from all the times she had seen in on Harm's face as he stood watching Tomcats take off over a pink-lit ocean at sunset. If she had ever doubted, this would have completely convinced her that Harm had inherited his love of flying from his father.  
  
Harm Sr's voice grew hoarse as he spoke, his gaze still focussed firmly on the plane.  
  
"I'd almost forgotten about her. I haven't thought about her in years. How's she fly?"  
  
"Like a dream. Even Mac enjoyed flying in her, and when I took her up in a Tomcat she was sick as a dog."  
  
"Harm, remember I only enjoyed it up until the time you crashed."  
  
Harm Sr's head snapped round at this. "You crashed.?"  
  
"It was an emergency landing. Split fuel line. The landing wasn't too bad, Mac just associates it with the homicidal poachers who tracked us through the woods afterwards."  
  
Harm Sr looked slightly askanse at his son. "Do you ever go a week without something interesting happening to you?"  
  
"From time to time."  
  
"Okay. I take it Mom was hinting we should take this old lady out and let her spread her wings?"  
  
"I can't get up here all that often. Wouldn't be right not to treat her good while we can, would it?"  
  
They shared the grins of pilots who knew they were about to take to the air, and began to go about checking Sarah over. Mac watched them for a few minutes before something occurred to her.  
  
"Which of you two boys is gonna fly her?"  
  
Harm looked up with a start, hitting his head on the fuselage. "What?"  
  
"You used your arm as an excuse not to drive, even though you did fly over. And your Dad doesn't have a civilian pilot's license, or at least not one that's in date."  
  
"I've got a valid license. I can go in the back seat, Dad can take the controls. No problem."  
  
The two men both had wild looks in their eyes, stupid grins on their faces and wind-ruffled hair when they came down from the clouds for a break.  
  
"You two have fun?"  
  
"Like you wouldn't believe."  
  
"Grandma Sarah brought down some lunch when she saw you start your landing preparations. You want to eat something before you go back up?"  
  
"Lead the way!"  
  
They settled down together on a blanket, forgetting the chill of the March day in their exuberant conversation, and joyful eating of the home-made lunch.  
  
"It's weird flying for fun again. I haven't done it since I was a teenager. Last time I did aerobatics like that except as part of a dogfight was in flight school."  
  
"I used to take Sarah up all the time when I was at JAG. Most of the time it was the nearest I could come to a Tomcat. It's actually because of her I went to a doctor to get my eyes rechecked, then got them fixed." Mac's smile lessened slightly. Harm, noticing this, mentally kicked himself. "And I don't think flying in space would be all that easy for someone who can't see in the dark."  
  
Mac saw that he was trying not to bring up the first time he left JAG, and she was grateful for it. She was about to move the conversation on, when Harm's head snapped up.  
  
"Harm? What is it?"  
  
"Someone's coming."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"I don't know, but they've got a snake in their head." 


	6. Chapter 66

Before Mac had even thought about turning her head to look for the newcomer, something warm and furry came into contact with her back as their four-legged friend skidded to a halt after racing over from its perusal of the interior of the barn. So instead of fixing her attention on the spot in the distance at which Harm stared, Mac turned to look at the green creature, curious as to why it was acting the way it was.  
  
Its fur was bushed out, making it appear the same size as the others of its species back on its own planet. The hairs on the back of its neck were vibrating so fast they appeared only as an indistinct blur. And whereas the creature had spent most of the weekend up until then purring in a very feline manner, it was now emitting a loud growl which reminded Mac that she had at first thought of it as a bear-like creature, with the feline comparisons only occurring to her later. Its legs were bent, keeping its body lower to the ground than usual, an air of tense, furious readiness emanating from its every pore.  
  
Realising that the creature considered whomever was approaching to be a threat, and reasoning that there was a good chance it knew more about what was ging on than any of the humans present did, Mac turned to Harm with the intention of pointing the creature's behaviour out to him.  
  
But she stopped as she opened her mouth to speak.  
  
There was a look of frozen horror on his face, and something going on behind his eyes that she couldn't quite put a finger on.  
  
~You see, Tau'ri? You cannot escape the vengeance of the Gods.~  
  
~Nothing's even happened yet.~  
  
~Oh but it will. You will see. You and I both know who approaches. Fortune and trickery will not save you now.~  
  
~When's fortune saved me from a Goa'uld?~  
  
~The former host that shot you. It was a Marine, firing from close range. Only luck saved you then. And had that Aesir not been in orbit, you would have died in that Admiral's office.~  
  
~That wasn't the vengeance of the Gods. That was a confused kid trying to beat the creature that stole his mind.~  
  
~An action set in motion than by the Gods.~  
  
~The Goa'uld wanted me alive. Killing me would not have served their purpose. A Sarcophagus will only work for so long after death.~  
  
~Only fortune and trickery saved you from me, and from my father.~  
  
~I prefer to think of it as strength of will.~  
  
~My father was killed by a traitorous Jaffa.~  
  
~That's not trickery on my part. You're willing to concede the fortune thing, then?~  
  
The part of Harm's psyche dominated by Apollo's ghost sneered at Harm. ~I concede nothing to you, Tau'ri. Your petty arguments are beneath me.~  
  
~You're dead, snake. You only exist in my head. My 'petty arguments' are all you have left.~  
  
~You think I couldn't supress all that remains of you if I chose, and walk about taking your body as my own?~  
  
~If you could, why haven't you done that already?~  
  
Silence.  
  
~You can't, can you? You'd need to have a part of me left to fool people into thinking nothing was wrong. You completely supress me, you can't access my memories. Like how Sam can only access Jolinar's memories when she's dreaming them. Other than that she only gets feelings.~  
  
~You know nothing.~  
  
~I'm right, aren't I? If you completely supress me, you won't be able to access my memories, so you won't be able to masquerade as me. My guys wouldn't hesitate to kill me if they thought you'd taken over and I couldn't get back in control. So you'd be dead. But if you stay where you are now, in a corner of my mind, you at least have something like an existence.~  
  
~That is not so.~  
  
~Of course not. Not exactly. If you can take over when we're off planet with no-one around, you could get to a gate and get off the planet. You can do all the trappings of still being a symbiote, the eyes and technology and stuff, but you'd feel wrong to other Goa'uld. And my healing's better than it was, but not as good as when a symbiote is controlling the process. You'd never have your status back. No, you're better off right where you are.~  
  
As Harm snapped out of the trance-like state in which he communicated with his dead tormentor, the newcomer drew near enough for him to be completely certain that his assumption about their identity was correct.  
  
His conversation with Apollo had given him an idea. Muttering under his breath an instruction to Mac and his father to "play along, okay?" he tilted his head back slightly and stared straight into the newcomers' eyes. He then spoke, distorting his voice as if a controlling symbiote were in charge. The words dripped with reptilian arrogance.  
  
"You have come a long way in vain if you seek to avenge my death, Sister." 


	7. Chapter 67

Artemis, the Chaste Lady, Goddess of the Hunt and of the Moon, Daughter of Zeus and Leto, stopped in her tracks. In front of her, a small furry green creature growled threateningly, its front left paw lifted a few inches from the ground and flexing in a manner which oozed menace.  
  
She looked to the one who claimed to be her brother.  
  
"You are not Apollo. Apollo was slain by an arrogant Tau'ri."  
  
The man standing before her gave a snort of faintly-amused contempt. "You think a Tau'ri whom Zeus himself had captured and chained could cause me even the mildest discomfort? You insult me."  
  
"My reports were most insistent on the matter. Apollo and Zeus were slain. I saw the body of the Thunderer's myself, its symbiote cut neatly in two."  
  
"But not mine."  
  
"Apollo was without a host at the time. It is understandable no body was recovered."  
  
She felt her certainty begin to waver. None of the Jaffa she had interrogated had actually witnessed the murders of her father and brother, had merely seen Jaffa, who later turned out to be traitors, accompanying a group of Tau'ri, including this man, from the room where Zeus' body was found. This man, it was decided, had done the deed, or at least instigated it."  
  
"Surely it makes more sense that I left the place alive, hidden in a new host from the traitors who killed our father and who thought they had killed me."  
  
She did sense naquadah in him, and something of the presence of a symbiote. But it was not the normal feel of a Goa'uld.  
  
"My brother and I had words by which we might know each other."  
  
The man's lip curled slightly, in a mannerism her brother often adopted.  
  
"Menin aeide, thea, Peleiadew Achileos oulomenen, he muri Achaiois alge etheken, pollas d'iphthimous psychas Aidi proiapsen herwwn, autous de helwria teuche kunessin oiwnoisi te pasi, Dios d'eteleieoto boule, ex ou de ta prwta diasteten erisante Atreides te anax andrwn kai dios Achilleus."  
  
The words rang true, but still.  
  
"Any of the Tau'ri might know those words."  
  
"But only I would know that they were apt. And only I would recall that those words were first spoken in public in my own hall, and that the poet was paid only with a single olive from my plate, given to him by my own hand; a payment he himself had requested, and claimed he would value above all the riches of the Earth, because it was a gift from me."  
  
Artemis prevented her surprise from showing on her face. Instead she inclined her head slightly to her brother.  
  
"And so I know you. But tell me, brother, what are you doing here? Why do you dwell among the Tau'ri? How were you not slain by those who killed our father, and why did you allow the traitorous Jaffa to live? Why have you remained in a host you must have known would be hunted by others of the Goa'uld, to punish it if you were dead, to quitely dispose of you if you lived?"  
  
"I dwell among the Tau'ri because at present, it suits me to do so. It is pleasant to be remembered in this place so long after our kind departed, even in lands I never chose to visit. I was not slain by those who killed our father because in the confusion of the matter, one of the traitorous Jaffa, searching for glory for himself no doubt, cried out that he had killed me, and the others saw no reason to doubt him. I allowed them to live first in the belief that they might lead me to other traitors, and later because killing them would not have achieved me my goal, which was to return to this place. I remain in this host because I have encountered no other like it in all my years. It is powerful in mind and body, and yet its soul spills over with music. This host pleases me, and I have grown attached to it. It is a fountain of originality and interest which cannot be found in our peoples whom we keep among the stars, who have not the spirit in them to dream for what they cannot have."  
  
She smiled to herself. Some things never changed. "For all your skill with the bow and weapons like it, you never did favour power through force of arms. Your Sybils and their Priests at Delphi gave you more power than ever an army did. Always the musician, with your unusual methods and love for your poets."  
  
"I was a warrior without match."  
  
A musician with the pride of a male. Though many females exhibited the same pride, more in this new world the Tau'ri had built for themselves than there had been in the days of old, but even when the Olympian Goa'uld ruled Greece there had been women with spirits of fire. Many of them had done her good service.  
  
"Without match, my brother, I only say that it was never your true love. Your destroyed with words and plagues; rarely did you initiate war."  
  
He inclined his head slightly. "Well sister, you see for yourself that I am not dead. You cannot avenge me. Will you remain here, or will you return to your own domain?"  
  
She watched him closely. Her twin he might be, but the two of them did not lack sibling rivalry. He could be of use, but this would take a little thought.  
  
To pass the time while she turned her idea over in her mind, she engaged in idle conversation. "What of these two Tau'ri? What do you wish with them?"  
  
"The male is very similar in appearance to this host. I am sure that will come in useful. The female." Here he shot the female a glance filled with a tenderness she had never seen in him before. "Part of what is interesting about this host is his passionate affection for the female. And she is not unpleasant to look upon. The host and I have come to an understanding regarding her, and she is willing to follow it. She had never lain with a god before."  
  
Having no care for such matters, Artemis decided to move the flow of the conversation, though she was not yet completely decided to invite her brother on her excursion. So her eyes were drawn to his green creature, still looking at her with aggression in its eyes, though aggression less marked than it had been before.  
  
"And what of this thing?"  
  
"An interesting discovery of mine. I saw no others of its kind. It was wary of me at first, but food made it trusting. It appears to sense harmful intent in others. That is why it looks at you so. When first you came, you had in mind to kill me."  
  
Such a creature could be useful indeed. She turned her host's most winning smile upon her twin.  
  
"I have a proposition for you, dear brother." 


	8. Chapter 68

Mac forced her face to remain impassive while Harm spoke, and while Artemis gave an outline of her plan. The thing was, everything Harm was saying was plausible. If she hadn't been assured that Harm's head CTs had come up clear, she could almost believe that parts of what 'Apollo' was saying were true, and that he was speaking the way he was to keep everyone around convinced that he was on their side; convince Apollo's sister that Apollo was still alive, but have enough lies in there to keep Mac and Harm Sr happy that the whole thing was a fabrication.  
  
But all SGC personnel had their brains scanned regularly, even if they never went offworld. There was no way Apollo could still be alive. When Harm had those conversations in his head, he was talking to a ghost, a ghost created by Harm's subconscious to help him handle memories no man should have to deal with. It was Harm, pretending. Of course it was.  
  
Didn't mean it wasn't absolutely terrifying.  
  
Harm listened carefully to what Artemis had to say. He could see how her proposal might have interested Apollo, had he truly been alive. But even more clearly, for which on many levels he was absurdly grateful, he could see the benefits to the SGC.  
  
He looked at Artemis, and spoke the words to put himself at risk for the complete and utter destruction of his soul.  
  
"I am interested. We shall finish our meal, these two will do some more flying, and the two of us will discuss this matter in more detail."  
  
"Why do we not go now, brother?"  
  
"My host's grandmother lives in that house. She knows how he plans to spend his afternoon before he has to leave and return to his post. She knows he loves to fly, and would not leave early without good cause. I see no need to arouse suspicion. And anyway," he looked around, seeming to drink in the bright sunlight, "It's a nice day. I would rather spend it in the sun on a planet where once I was a god than in a ship where there is nothing truly unique."  
  
"Ever the artist. No appreciation for what is efficient."  
  
"Ever the hunter. No understanding of true beauty. There is no music on a ship, only the hum of engines and the tramp of boots as Jaffa walk to their posts. Nothing to inspire those who follow the god Apollo, let alone the god himself."  
  
"There is no hurry, I suppose. And as you said, no need to arouse suspicion." She sat down beside the blanket. "It shall be as you suggest. We shall eat, and they shall fly, and we shall discuss the plan."  
  
Harm watched the little yellow biplane loop and roll. His father was obviously enjoying himself. They'd be coming down soon, and the three of them would grab their things, put them in the car and drive somewhere secluded, leaving the car locked, and Artemis would beam them up into the small cargo ship she had in orbit. All this was according to the plan. In a small addition to the plan, of which the Goa'uld was not aware, Harm had been recording their conversation since they had finished eating, having retrieved a bug from his things when he went inside to put the food things away. He had not been transmitting at the time, only recording, so that there was no risk of Artemis realising what was going on. He would set it to transmit about half an hour after they left the planet. It probably wouldn't accomplish much, as there was little the people at the SGC could do. Their destination was not part of the gate network, and the Prometheus wasn't in the area. But at the very least it would probably prevent the three of them from being listed as UA.  
  
"You approve of my plan, brother?"  
  
"I think it's one of your best. It has layers of subtlty only masters like ourselves can appreciate."  
  
"Subtlty which lies mainly in the fact that it is not nearly as subtle as it should be."  
  
"The irony makes the plan all the sweeter. When it is done, I will award the right to compose the poem to the most talented rhetor I can find. I may even compose it myself; no human could truly handle such a matter, nor does any have the right to. You have outdone yourself, sister.  
  
~As do you, Tau'ri. This should be interesting. My sister was ever hard to fool for long.~  
  
~I'll take that as a challenge.~  
  
~Take it as what you will. It was meant as a warning. I do not intend you to die.~  
  
~You would choose me over your sister?~  
  
~You maintain my existence. She does not.~  
  
~You can just feel the sibling love.~  
  
~Even if she realises part of me dwells within you, she will not hesitate to kill you if she finds out you are playing her. And she will call it revenge for my death, even as she destroys me. Because I was always a threat to her, and you are even more so, for you are not Goa'uld, yet know things you should not. I will not fight you, for the time being. You must succeed here. For your own survival, and for the song. It will not be the song Artemis desires, but it will be a fine song.~ 


	9. Chapter 69

Harm stood looking out of the viewing portal as Earth gradually faded into the distance. Artemis would not start the hyperdrive until they were well clear of the solar system for fear of detection. Her remarks on the subject caused him to make a mental note to suggest a review of Earth's orbital defences if and when they got back. A simple cloaking system should not be enough to hide a potential threat from the people at the SGC.  
  
"Harm?" He felt a touch on his shoulder, and tilted his head to look at Mac, standing a little behind him to his right.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You okay?" She spoke softly, aware that even though Artemis was on the small bridge a few compartments forward, they were still in unfriendly territory.  
  
"Not really. But there's nothing I can do about it now. Apollo's ghost says he's not even going to try to fight me on this, so I've only got to worry about forgetting myself under the weight of his memories."  
  
"What if that happens?"  
  
"It's not gonna happen. I have you and Dad to keep me sane. And I have the mission to focus on."  
  
"Harm, I know I wasn't there when the two of you discussed the details, but I can't help thinking this is a suicide mission."  
  
Harm grinned at that. "Don't worry. Nothing's can go wrong."  
  
"Isn't that tempting fate?"  
  
"No, it's a fact. Didn't your cousin tell you the first rule of Stargate missions?"  
  
"I have a feeling you're about to."  
  
"Plan A never works."  
  
"Hate to burst your bubble, but that's not usually a good thing."  
  
"It's good when Plan A belongs to a bad guy."  
  
"Yeah, but you must want parts of Plan A to work."  
  
"Of course. A good plan B accomplishes what Plan A intended, without the things you don't want to happen."  
  
"So we're still going to blow the base she talked about, but not give her power over all the Jaffa?"  
  
"That's right. And the naquadah stockpiles she wants to capture will be captured, but not for her use. We can always find a use for more naquadah, and encouraging a bunch of Jaffa to join the Resistance will have good repercussions, even though the Alliance is shot to hell at the moment. I only wish we had Teal'c with us, he'd find it easier to convince the Jaffa to defect than we will, especially as you and Dad don't know all the subtlties of the Jaffa way of life."  
  
At this point, Harm Sr entered and joined the pair watching as Earth finally vanished from sight..  
  
"This ship is amazing."  
  
"You think this is something, wait until you see the inside of a Mothership. This is like a raft next to the Enterprise in comparison. And you probably remember what they're like close-up from the wrong end of their laser cannon..."  
  
They stood where they were for a couple of hours, seeing the wonders of the solar system from close up. As they passed Pluto, Artemis came back to speak to 'her brother'.  
  
"Hyperlaunch will be in five minutes. You will wish to ensure that it does not alarm your Tau'ri, but then I suggest you come to the bridge. I do not wish to have to attend to all the controls by myself, and I brought no Jaffa with me, as I considered avenging your death to be a Goa'uld matter, with which the Jaffa should not concern themselves, or even know of until the matter was accomplished."  
  
Harm gave a gentlemanly inclination of his head. "Of course. I appreciate your coming all this way, in light of the extreme inconvenience. There are those of our kind who neglect the fact that we are superior life-forms, and allow their Jaffa all manner of liberties."  
  
"You allow liberties in these Tau'ri."  
  
"The Tau'ri, whilst inferior to the Goa'uld, are at least nearer our level than the Jaffa. They have come a long way in the years since our kind left them. Many make fine hosts, such as this one, and most have something which makes them interesting. No Goa'uld would stoop so low as to take a Jaffa as host, and they lack... grace."  
  
She nodded her head back to him. "What you say has merit. There is something fascinating about the Tau'ri. But do not let yourself forget, brother, that to be King of the Beggars is still to be a beggar."  
  
"I forget nothing, sister." His eyes flashed with arrogance. "I shall join you presently." 


	10. Chapter 70

Crouched behind a wall covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics she didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of deciphering, Mac tried to decide who she should be cursing. The current choice was between Harm, Artemis and the Universe as a whole. Harm's earlier remark that "Nothing can go wrong" was making him a strong contender, but she had to admit that enough of the things which had gone wrong had been down entirely to bad luck to create a strong case against the universe.  
  
The whole thing had started out quite well. Artemis had brought the little cargo ship directly to the planet where the target base was housed, providing the Jaffa in charge of the planet's security net with the appropriate clearance, as well as a good dose of Goa'uld haughtiness.  
  
That Goa'uld haughtiness, however, had completely screwed them.  
  
"My Lady, we are honoured by your presence. Our Lord is not here at present and so is unable to welcome you, but a set of guest quarters is available if you would care to refresh yourself before attending to the matters which bring you here."  
  
Alerted by the Jaffa who had cleared them that there was a Goa'uld on her way, the Jaffa on the ground had prepared a guard of honour, as decorum dictated if there was no Goa'uld present to instruct them otherwise. The possibility of this happening had occurred to neither Harm nor Artemis, as not only were the circumstances of a Goa'uld arriving in another's territory while the other was absent without an army at his or her extremely rare, but with the current relations between the System Lords and Anubis, and the infighting within the ranks of the System Lords, proper decorum was not, for the most part, being observed.  
  
Not for nothing was Artemis raised to believe, and to make others believe, that she was a goddess. She kept her outward calm, and treated the Jaffa as she would treat any Jaffa: as if they would have been completely beneath her notice were it not for their few uses.  
  
"That is a satisfactory proposal. Lead the way." She turned, and flicked her hand at the three humans. "You three. Bring the three boxes I showed you earlier. If I have need of anything else, I shall send one of these Jaffa to fetch it later."  
  
Each of them bowed their heads and backed back into the main body of the ship, acting the lifelong, willing servants, and each picked up an empty box from the main cargo area. They all looked heavy, as they were gold on the surface, but that was an illusion. Underneath a very thin layer of gold, the boxes were made of aluminium, and so would not be create a problem if something went wrong and they had to move in a hurry. Though if and when they were fulled they'd get a lot heavier, and become too valuable to leave behind without a really good reason.  
  
As they were walking along, the honour guard attracted the attention of the lower-ranked Jaffa going about their duties. This would not have created any problems under most circumstances. However, there was another thing that no-one had taken into account.  
  
The lead Jaffa was very obligingly giving Artemis a detailed account of everything she saw as they made their way towards the guest quarters, which Harm heard and made mental notes on. They came to a halt next to the entrance to a corridor which led to the base's main naquadah processing plant. There was a Jaffa guarding the entrace, and he came to attention as the party drew near.  
  
As he drew to attention, Harm realised there was something familiar about him.  
  
~He wears the tattoo of the Thunderbolt. He was a Jaffa of my father's. He may well have been among those you passed on the way from killing me to the Chapa'ai whilst making your escape. See his eyes? He recognises you. And he knows Artemis would not suffer her brother's killer to live. He is also likely to know that my family, whatever they may have said in public, are no friends to the Goa'uld who rules here. Running would probably be a good move now.~  
  
This information took only an instant to actualise itself in Harm's brain, and with the reflexes of the fighter pilot his blood had always meant him to be he hurled the box he was carrying at the nearest Jaffa, then ran. Harm Sr and Mac were only a split second behind him. Artemis, unaccustomed to vigorous physical exercise or to needing to move quickly, was unable to take any action before she had been hit from two directions by zatnik'tel blasts, rendering her immobile. Permanently.  
  
The trio sprinted down the nearest unwatched corridor, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that the Jaffa based here were not your average Jaffa guards, which tended to be moronic, incapable of independent thought, unable to shoot straight and useless when it came to conducting searches or pursuing fugitives. The only thing working in the humans' favour was the fact that while they were more intelligent than average, they still hadn't come up with the concept of CCTV. It was a standing joke in the SGC that if the Jaffa ever came up with that idea, humanity would be wiped out in less than twenty-four hours.  
  
The irritating displays of initiative did not stop at arranging a pursuit and killing the Goa'uld they thought was the ringleader. Small, controlled explosions were set off in their vicinity, disorienting them and making their ears ring. They had become slightly strung out, Harm taking point as the most likely to be able to find a way out, Mac watching their rear to give as much notice as possible of approaching Jaffa. As incredibly bad luck would have it, one of the explosions was let off at a point where their corridor intersected with another one. Harm was just past the explosion point, Mac was just behind it, and Harm Sr was almost next to it, though fortunately next to the far wall. The explosion knocked all three of them to the ground, each of the three falling down a different branch of corridor to watch in horror as the ceiling above the midpoint collapsed, cutting them off from each other. 


	11. Chapter 71

Harm stared at the pile of rubble cutting him off from his father and the woman he loved. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen both of them shoved clear of the falling debris by the force of the explosion, but he was acutely aware that that did not mean nothing bad had happened to them.  
  
He climbed to his feet, swaying slightly. He put his hand to his temple, and it came away bloody. He allowed himself a small groan. Another concussion was the last thing he needed.  
  
Then he heard a sound behind him, and corrected himself. A Jaffa with a staff weapon pointed at him ready to fire was the last thing he needed.  
  
He turned round slowly, his arms held out from his sides to show that he wasn't holding anything. There were five Jaffa, standing in a V formation with the point towards him. All of them were aiming their staff weapons at him, the tips crackling with the yellow energy that all to easily could soon be hurtling towards him in a ball of light. And even Jaffa couldn't miss at that range.  
  
The Jaffa at the point of the V spoke to him.  
  
"You are at our mercy, Tau'ri. You will be imprisoned until our Lord and Master arrives to view you for himself. I will take great pleasure in participating in your interrogation."  
  
Harm, never one to particularly enjoy the experience of being tortured, was disinclined to surrender. He spat at the Jaffa's feet, and grinned. "Temetfutue, serve."  
  
Had there been other people present, none of them would have been more surprised than Harm when the Jaffa all bowed their heads and dropped their weapons.  
  
Mac was on the move. Well aware of the fact that she was the nearest to their pursuers, she backtracked along the corridor, hoping to find another turning to escape down rather than be cornered. However, she could not move far before she encountered another blockage in the corridor, where another of the localised charges had detonated. She was stuck.  
  
Harm Sr found himself in a similar situation, cut off in both directions without an escape route. But he had been more fortunate than Mac. A flying shard of gold, formerly part of the wall, had rebounded off the ceiling, revealing some sort of hidden panel in the ceiling, not too far from the wall. Seeing no real alternative, Harm Sr ran his fingers over the wall beneath the opening. The glyphs on the wall did not jut out much, but he'd be able to get a grip with his fingers and the toes of the boots he had chosen to fly in that day. How he would manoeuvre himself through the gap when he got that high was an interesting question, but one which he chose to ignore for the time being.  
  
Harm stared at the Jaffa in front of him.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
They all raised their heads. The one at the front raised his hand to the black tattoo on his forehead. It was the shape of a goat; the symbol of Pan's Jaffa.  
  
"You have set us free."  
  
"What?!" Harm had to admit, it was a weird form of manumission.  
  
"It is written."  
  
"What is written?"  
  
"The Prophecy of the Liberator!"  
  
"I still have no idea what you're talking about." Though 'The Liberator' had a nice ring to it.  
  
"'He shall come among you, a mortal man with the mind of an Achaian, and he shall curse you in the tongue of Rome, and by his words the name he calls you shall be made void'. That is the Prophecy of the Liberator. All the Jaffa of Pan know this."  
  
"You wanna be free?" Harm was now slightly confused. Most Jaffa needed a little convincing before they embraced the concept of freedom.  
  
"All those who know they are slaves seek freedom. Most Jaffa do not know they are slaves, but we know. We are kept on this planet for years on end, with only the prospect of a brief relief from it when there is war to be waged. There is limited food, as the space is used to store naquadah and devise technology. Our food is strictly rashioned, and we require special permission to have children. Who would not yearn to be free if they lived thus? We know Pan is not a god. If Pan were a god, he would have no need of this place."  
  
"Even gods need weapons, in most mythologies."  
  
"Not to work simple illusions. Not to look out over the world and see what is going on."  
  
"Okay. So you're free. Now what?"  
  
A somewhat sinister grin appeared on the face of the Jaffa. "Now we exercise that freedom. Remain behind us. The others do not know the prophecy has been fulfilled, they will try to kill or capture you." The Jaffa beckoned.  
  
"Wait just a minute. The people who were with me are on the other side of that rubble. They don't know what's going on either. We have to get them out of there."  
  
"Very well. Stand aside."  
  
All the Jaffa raised their staff weapons, and started firing in volleys at the rubble. As it was mostly metal, in particular gold, it did not require too much heat to melt. Very soon they had cleared a path over the top of the rubble to the two corridors Harm felt Mac and his dad were most likely to be there.  
  
Coughing slightly on the dust the firing and explosions had created, Harm waited for the area to cool a little before climbing over the top, and looking down both ways. There was no sign of either his father or Mac in either unbroken length of corridor. 


	12. Chapter 72

"Where are we?"  
  
"I have no idea."  
  
"Where's Harm?"  
  
"Also no idea."  
  
Harm Sr had climbed through his own ceiling then down a short air-vent like tunnel until he was able to look down and see Mac, open a panel beneath him similar to the one in his own corridor, and haul her up to join him. They had crawled along a bit to get away from where the Jaffa were most likely to look, then paused to take stock of their situation.  
  
Had Mac been inspired by her godson's name to gather some background Star Trek knowledge, or if Harm Sr had ever even had the opportunity to do so, one or other of them might have compared the space in which they now found themselves to Jeffries Tubes. They might then have cast this comparison aside, on the grounds that not only were they on a planetary base rather than a starship, but Jeffries Tubes didn't tend to be lined with gold hieroglyphics. However, we shall never know whether either actually would have made the comparison, as neither was well-informed enough in such matters to do so.  
  
"You have any suggestions as to where we might find your son? I kinda lost my bearings in all this crawling around."  
  
"You know him better than I do. What would his first move be once we were separated?"  
  
"Try and get back to us. How he'd do that depends on how the rubble looked from his side. If he thought there was a chance he could get through to one of us, he'd try that. If not, he'd look for another way round to get to us. But he'd spend a while on the rubble if he couldn't quickly find a way round to us, which is likely as we never got a good look at a map of this place apart from the bit we needed for Artemis' naquadah-stealing plan."  
  
"So he's probably somewhere quite close beneath us."  
  
"Unless some Jaffa go to him, or he saw some coming. Then he'd try to lead them away from us."  
  
Harm Sr sighed. "And as we have no idea what's happened to him, we have no idea where he is, and no real way of finding out."  
  
Mac thought for a moment.  
  
"I'm not so sure about that." 


	13. Chapter 73

Unfortunately for Mac, the plan beginning to formulate itself in the back of her mind would never come to pass. This was through no fault of her own, unless you count being more of a dog-person than a cat-person a fault. Simply put, Mac's plan would come to nothing because she failed to grasp one of the most important thought processes present in a cat's mind; I Am Not A Dog. I Am Not A Slave To Anyone. Thus I Shall Do As I Damn Well Please.  
  
A large green dog-like creature would have remained where it was told to remain; in one of the small rooms on the cargo ship put aside for taking a quick nap. It might have moved to investigate if it had heard its master or mistress shout in pain, it might not. Completely depends on the canine's relative intellect.  
  
A green creature with the physique of a small bear and the mind of a cat does not behave in this manner.  
  
Its tail lashing violently, The Cat Who Walks By Himself prowled the corridors of the Goa'uld base, growling softly. So softly that the growl might almost be taken for a purr, if one failed to notice the less-than- friendly expression in its eyes.  
  
Cats the universe over do not like fireworks. In America, the more intelligent ones stay safely indoors on the Fourth of July. In England, they stay safely indoors on the Fifth of November, to glare reproachfully at the humans when they return very late smelling of gunpowder, smoke and charred sausage. Large green bear-cats do not like fireworks any more than the average cat, mainly because of the loud noise. A loud noise similar to that made when a series of controlled explosive devices are detonated in a confined area not too far from where said large green cat-bear had been trying to sleep. And cats awakened from sleep against their wishes are not the most friendly of animals at the best of times.  
  
The Jaffa of Pan were, as has been previously stated, not as stupid as the average Jaffa, nor as inclined to the sort mob-mentality that results in large numbers of people being killed by a single creature whom they outnumber more than a hundred to one. When they saw the creature coming, the latent survival instinct which military training is designed to overcome resurrected its dominance in all the Jaffa the creature encountered, and they stayed safely out of its way.  
  
Mac and Harm Sr, unaware of these developments, began to make their way towards the outer part of the building, crawling through their tubes, by using the oldest trick in the book; crawling in the direction the air smelled freshest, hoping against hope that fresh air was filtered in from outside rather than wasting power by recycling the air indoors and wasting power.  
  
As Harm Sr had replaced both panels when he had hauled Mac out of the corridor, Harm was left with no obvious clues as to where the two of them had gone. He turned to look at the senior Jaffa, who had given his name as Aiax.  
  
"Spread your men out. Tell them not to shoot anyone. Leave it as an unexplained order or explain what's going on; whatever you think will work better. Just make sure they don't get shot."  
  
"It shall be so. Alla meh phrontisde; we have a sarcophagus for Pan's use when he inspects this place, if they are killed they can be resurrected. We can if you wish resurrect the Lady Artemis."  
  
"No, leave Artemis. We weren't exactly on the same side as her to start with, if we bring her back she'll just cause problems. I don't want to have to use a sarcophagus on the other two; I think the Tok'Ra are going a bit far when they say the sarcophagus takes away pieces of your soul, but there can be bad side-effects, even from a single use. I'd like to avoid that."  
  
Harm remembered his own experience with a sarcophagus, an experience he did not care to repeat. It was just after he and SG-6 had been captured by Zeus. Zeus had wanted him in prime condition before he was interrogated, in order to get in as much pain as possible before he passed out.  
  
Aiax had obviously not followed what Harm had said about the Tok'Ra and sarcophagi, but he nodded all the same and barked some instructions to the four Jaffa in his team, who all then wandered off in different directions. Well aware that they were more likely to find Mac and his dad than he was, Harm tried, not very successfully, to push them out of his mind, and refocussed his attention on Aiax.  
  
"If you guys are free now, I'll assume you wanna get out of here? Pan must have other Jaffa who'd be prepared to attack you if they thought you were traitors?"  
  
"Yes. I believe we will all be able to fit onto the naquadah-transporting vessels we have docked here."  
  
"Do you have anywhere to go?"  
  
Aiax had obviously never thought this far ahead. He shrugged, a gesture peculiar in one wearing Jaffa body armour.  
  
"I had not expected the Liberator to come in my lifetime, nor even that of my son. I am not sure I ever expected him to come. I have never had occasion to think of what would happen if I were free. I have nowhere to go; my son and my wife are here, I have no other family."  
  
"There's an encampment of rebel Jaffa somewhere out there," Harm said, waving his hand in the general direction of space, "Though I'm not exactly sure where. We used to share a base with them, but they felt too restricted. I'm sure I can easily find out where they are." He had a feeling Aiax would not accept that offer, and he was correct.  
  
"No. We are not like most warriors. We are not trained to attack. We are accustomed to defending a base we know as well as we know our own names. I do not think other Jaffa would believe us to be of any value. We need our own place, a place to be away from the Jaffa and where we can defend ourselves."  
  
"With or without a Gate?"  
  
"A Gate?"  
  
"A Chapa'ai. If you have one, the Goa'uld are more likely to come across you by accident. If you don't, you have no ready means of retreat if you're attacked from orbit."  
  
Aiax sighed. "Let us evaluate the merits of any possible planets we find, whether or not they have a Chapa'ai."  
  
Harm nodded. "That makes sense. What the?"  
  
A Jaffa was sprinting towards them. He skidded to a halt in front of them, and after nodding to Harm, he spoke to Aiax.  
  
"There is a strange creature on the base. It has not attacked any of us, but we do not know how it got here, or who sent it. It is green, and growls as it walks. We have never seen anything like it before."  
  
He seemed startled when Harm grinned. "You know what this creature is, Liberator?"  
  
"It and many others of its kind helped my people defeat the Jaffa of V'Akhdar a few days ago. We think it's one of the Furlings' Guardians."  
  
The new-come Jaffa snorted. "They are just a legend designed to frighten small children."  
  
Harm looked evenly at him. "Until today, did you honestly think a mortal man with the mind of an Achaian would come among you and curse you in the tongue of Rome? Didn't think so. Do you know where the creature is at the moment?"  
  
"I know the direction it was headed in when I saw it."  
  
"Take me to it. It likes me, but it doesn't have a very good record when it comes to Jaffa. Probably the only reason it hasn't started killing you is that it doesn't see you as a threat at the moment. It might only take one of your people trying to be a hero to set it off."  
  
The Jaffa looked to Aiax for confirmation. Aiax nodded. "I shall come too. I wish to see this creature for myself." 


	14. Chapter 74

Mac and Harm Sr were doing quite well. They had reached what they assumed to be the outside of the building. The outer wall of their passage was cooler than others had been, and the air they were breathing had a cold bite to it. They crawled along beside this cold wall, hoping to find somewhere they could look out and get their bearings; they had had ample time as the cargo ship descended to the dock to look out of the windows.  
  
Luck, to a very small degree, was with them. They found some sort of vent through which they could look, and ascertained that they weren't all that far from their ship. Approximating distance whilst inside a tunnel which did not have light so much as a vague ethereal glow would not be easy, but here Mac's innate sense of time would come in useful, as near the vent there was enough light to approximate distance and so enable Mac to calculate how far they could crawl in a given amount of time, giving her a reasonably good way of guessing how far they travelled.  
  
Harm's path intercepted that of the Furlings' Guardian just outside a room which proved to be the primary control centre for the base. The cat was overwhelmed with joy at the sight of him, and twined itself around Harm's legs so thoroughly that he was hard-pressed to keep both his balance and his dignity, both of which are important when dealing with Jaffa and maintaining the appropriate image of a Liberator whose coming was foretold in prophecy generations before.  
  
As he was there, he stepped into the control room, with Aiax close behind him, eagerly explaining what the various panels and control systems were for.  
  
The processes involved in refining naquadah were, whilst very interesting and useful in an abstract sense, not Harm's primary concern.  
  
"You have internal sensors that can be monitored from here?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Show me how to work them, I need to find my friends."  
  
"That will not be very easy, as there are enough Jaffa walking outside their usual patrol routes to make it impossible to tell who is who."  
  
"Most sensor systems can differentiate between lifeforms carrying Goa'uld symbiotes or larvae and those which don't. So we look for the two people who don't register as having symbiotes. They're unlikely to be in any of the major corridors, or someone would probably have found them by now; they're not used to operating in this sort of environment."  
  
Aiax nodded, and walked over to a security panel in the corner.  
  
"I have found them. They are heading towards your ship. They are moving slowly along one of the ventilation shafts. I will alert the Jaffa in their vicinity to their presence."  
  
"Remind the Jaffa that my friends don't know the Jaffa have been ordered not to shoot, and may be aggressive."  
  
"Of course. Are they armed?"  
  
"Not unless your people leave weapons lying around in the ventilation shafts. That must be how they disappeared after the explosion cut them both off. But Mac, the woman, is trained in hand-to-hand combat, and they're both skilled warriors."  
  
"I shall tell those near them."  
  
Mac gently eased up the panel beneath her, and took a cautious look at the space beneath. There were no Jaffa in sight, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case for very long. Indicating to Harm Sr that the way appeared clear, she carefully lowered herself to the ground, keeping an eye on the end of the corridor while Harm Sr lowered himself down behind her.  
  
It took no conscious effort on either of their parts to move into stealth mode, communicating with jerks of the head and hand-signals only, moving on the balls of their feet with knees slightly bent. They could hear their own hearts beating in their ears, almost completely drowned out by the stomping of Jaffa's boots as they marched around, looking for the two of them.  
  
Adrenaline coursing through their veins, the pair crept down to the intersection in the corridors. If Mac's calculations were correct, the docking bay with their cargo ship would be a few yards down on the left.  
  
They almost made it without being spotted; guards who are rarely tested lose their edge. But they were a couple of yards shy of the entrance to the docking bay when they heard a yell of "Kree!" only a few paces behind them.  
  
They stopped dead, aware that if they fled they could be gunned down. It occurred to Mac that the shout was either a deliberate ploy to make them stop and be captured rather than killed, or a sign of a really stupid Jaffa. It was not, however, clear which.  
  
They were escorted at staff-point by three silent Jaffa through a maze-like succession of passageways, all of which were covered in gold hieroglyphs, and all of which were seemingly identical. They exchanged resigned expressions occasionally, but didn't speak. Nor did they attempt to escape; the place was crawling with Jaffa, some of whom for some reason looked at the staff weapons with apparent disapproval, all of whom were armed. If they made a break for it they wouldn't get ten feet before someone managed to floor them.  
  
They were finally prodded through a doorway into some sort of control room, where they saw both Harm and the green creature. They had obviously been captured before them. Mac sighed heavily. They had almost no hope of escape now. At her sigh, Harm looked up, a startled expression on his face. The expression was soon replaced by one of irritated amusement.  
  
"I think we can dispense with the weapons, guys. They're on our side."  
  
Harm wished he had a camera. The expression on Mac's face at that moment in time was priceless.  
  
"Harm? What's going on?"  
  
"Just after the explosion, Aiax and his buddies here found me. I wasn't exactly happy about that, so I swore at them. In Latin, as it happened. Which apparently fulfilled some prophecy of theirs about someone coming and liberating them from slavery in the service of Pan. I sent them to look for you, the furry guy found his own way here. We're trying to work out how best to evacuate this place of people, supplies and naquadah quickly. I also want to rig the whole planet to blow; there's enough naquadah in the ground to set off a chain reaction that would destroy the planet completely and knock its moons halfway out of the system."  
  
Mac and Harm Sr stood still while they absorbed this information. Harm Sr spoke up first. "Does this prophecy give any details that might be helpful?"  
  
"Aiax doesn't think so. There's more to it than he's telling me, but apparently telling me more would break the rules somehow."  
  
"Any way we can help with the plans?"  
  
"Probably not. Aiax's guys are best placed to work out how to distribute the personnel among the available ships, and getting a large amount of naquadah loaded. And neither of you's exactly an expert on the explosive qualities of unrefined naquadah."  
  
"Are you going to be able to start this chain reaction from orbit, or is it a lay-the-charge-and-run kinda thing?"  
  
"More likely to be the latter. I'll let you know more when we've worked out more of the details. For now, you'd probably better just watch and learn. Knowing how to use technology like this could well come in useful in the future, as you're both staying with the SGC." 


	15. Chapter 75

Watching Harm and the Jaffa at work, Mac became more and more impressed at what the people at the SGC did on a day-to-day basis. She had a rudimentary understanding of both physics and archaeology, but the way in which SGC work combined the two must make life hell for the archaeologists, linguists and physicists. The archaeologists had to be careful in case they encountered incredibly dangerous technology. The linguists had to deal with both linguistic shift on an awesome scale and scientific and technical vocabulary not likely to be found in the works of ancient scribes. The physicists had to work with technology that not only was obscure in use and origin, but had instruction manuals and displays in dead languages far different to the ancient classical languages that turned up in the stems of Earth's technological terminology.  
  
It was also disconcerting to see Harm so at home with this alien technology. While the systems of F-14s had always been somewhat alien to her, they had at least been familiarly alien. The technology, while confusing, was without doubt human in origin. What Harm was dealing with at the moment was technology developed by a mixture of the Ancients, the Goa'uld and any other race the Goa'uld had managed to steal things from. Mac was unsure whether to be glad that the Apollo experience had had a few fringe benefits, or extremely worried at how fully Apollo's knowledge seemed to have integrated itself with Harm's psyche.  
  
When Mac had been in the room for fifty-seven minutes and twenty-six seconds, Harm looked up from the console where he was seated and grinned at her. She walked over to him, curious as to the cause of the grin.  
  
"Harm? What's going on?"  
  
"I think I've found a way to impress you." He was like a small boy about to show off his new toy to the little girl next door.  
  
"I think we're past the point where you need to impress me, Harm."  
  
His eyes twinkled. "Humour me. I'm a guy. I need to impress my girl. And as my flying makes you sick, I was thinking I could make do with a big explosion."  
  
"An explosion's supposed to impress me?" Mac was grinning too by now, Harm's enthusiasm being somewhat infectious. Those Jaffa near enough to overhear the conversation, which was most of them, were caught somewhere between bemusement and laughter.  
  
"Hey, you're a Marine. You could pretend it's a really big airstrike."  
  
"Harm, the last airstrike both of us were involved in, we were kinda on the receiving end."  
  
"Not if you count Paraguay as an airstrike. You gotta admit that explosion gave you a rush."  
  
"At the time I was more concerned with the fact that we were about to crash."  
  
"That wasn't a crash. It was an emergency landing."  
  
"Harm, the plane had been hit by a stinger."  
  
"Yeah. While you were at the stick I might add. You can't blame that one on me."  
  
"Sure I can. But I'll be nice and let you off. So how are you going to arrange this impressive explosion of yours?"  
  
"We've calculated exactly what place in the facility to place a bomb to set off the most effective chain reaction, allowing for the removal of as much refined naquadah as we can fit into our cargo vessel. The Jaffa are going to take a little and use it to get established on a new homeworld somewhere, the rest is ours as long as we use it to bring down the Goa'uld and don't mindlessly slaughter Jaffa without giving them the chance to go free. And as a thank-you for setting these guys free. Never knew swearing in Latin could have such useful results."  
  
"In that case I might let you teach our kids to do it."  
  
Harm's grin grew even wider at that, a strange look in his eyes. "I'll hold you to that, Marine."  
  
It took several hours to get the Jaffa evacuated to their ships, especially as many of them were in far-lying corners of the base, and others were needed to put together the bomb and position it for maximum effect. However, when those hours had passed, everything was as ready as it could be.  
  
Aiax felt the destruction of the base to be his responsibility, and refused to leave with the other Jaffa, who set off in convoy for a set of pre- arranged co-ordinates, leaving only a Jaffa, three humans and a Guardian remaining, Harm Sr and Mac preparing the cargo ship for departure and securing the naquadah aboard in the way Harm had showed them, and the other three in the refining plant where the bomb was to be set off. Harm and Aiax were still busy working out the precise timing to set the bomb's explosion to, to enable them to make their escape without there being any chance of Pan dropping in and working out what was going on.  
  
As it turned out, Pan dropping in was not a problem.  
  
Anubis dropping in, on the other hand, was. 


	16. Chapter 76

As Harm and Aiax were in the refining plant when the ships entered the system, bereft of anything approximating a long-range sensor, they worked on, completely unaware of the approaching threat.  
  
"Uh, Captain Rabb?"  
  
"Just call me Hammer, I have no idea whether I'm gonna be confirmed as a Captain."  
  
"Okay. You see these flashing dots on this screen?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Is there even the smallest chance that they're a good thing?"  
  
"I don't think so. It looks like a radar readout showing the approach of hostiles."  
  
"That's what I was thinking. I knew that MIG ride was good for something."  
  
"I heard it also got you into the Martin Baker Fanclub."  
  
"Do Martin Baker make Russian ejector seats?"  
  
"Good point. But those dots are getting closer real fast."  
  
"Do we have any idea how to let Harm know?"  
  
Harm Sr looked around the small bridge. "I think this thing is some sort of communication device, but we have no way of knowing if the approaching hostiles could hear us. And because we were at Mom's place rather than in the mountain or another planet, we don't have radios with us."  
  
"So no."  
  
"No. Can you remember the way to the refining plant?"  
  
"Pretty much. I saw you playing with the furry guy with some sort of string earlier, where did that end up?"  
  
"It's in the room we were in earlier. It got a bit tangled, though. You gonna do the Minotaur trick?"  
  
"Yeah. That way even if I don't find Harm, I can at least get back here."  
  
As Mac made her way through the winding passages, she began to get a sense of urgency and broke into a run, favouring speed over the certainty of what direction she was going in. With the twine gradually unwinding behind her, there was no chance of her getting completely lost.  
  
She was about to head down one corridor when out of the corner of her eye she saw movement off to her left. She skidded to a halt and changed her direction. If the movement was Harm, all well and good. If it wasn't, she needed to know just how screwed they were.  
  
"Mac? Why aren't you on the ship?" Okay, not as screwed as they could be.  
  
"There's something showing up on one of the screens. We think it might be a fleet of hostiles."  
  
"Damn. Aiax, I can finish up here. Get to the ship and see what's going on."  
  
"No. Destroying this place is my duty and my privilege. You go to the control room. It is not far. If I need any help, I will send the woman to bring you. Go, we may not have much time."  
  
As there wasn't any time to argue, Harm sprinted off down the corridor, taking with him Mac's ball of twine so that she could find him if necessary.  
  
Even the new (or old, if you're being pedantic about it) languages which Apollo's memories supplied him with did not provide enough swear words to give Harm any sort of satisfaction when he took a good look at the screen. Although Anubis' ships were not in hyperspace, which restricted their speed somewhat, they were still travelling a lot faster than Harm would like. He estimated they had about ten minutes before they arrived at the base. That wasn't enough time to properly programme the timer on the bomb.  
  
Seeing one of the headsets used by the pilots of larger vessels to keep one eye on what's going on outside whilst leaving one eye free to look at their controls, Harm seized it, found to his relief that it was linked to the base's main computer and not keyed to the DNA of any particular Jaffa, and sprinted back to the refining plant, settling the headset over his brow as he did so, forcing his right eye to stare through a lot of little green dots, representing the approaching fleet. As they drew gradually closer, the computer was able to confirm what Harm had guessed immediately when he saw the size of the fleet. The ships belonged to Anubis, and they were armed to the teeth. This had obviously not been intended as a social call. As it was unlikely even Anubis could have found out about the events which had just occurred on the base so quickly, and mobilised a fleet, he had probably been expecting to have to eliminate Pan's defences. The distinct lack of those defences would not work to the favour of the small group on the ground.  
  
Mac very nearly lost her last shreds of hope when Harm came careering back into the refining plant. Urgency oozed from his every pore, and he had a wild-eyed look she could not consciously remember ever seeing before in him.  
  
"Anubis is coming!"  
  
All colour drained from Aiax' face. "How long do we have?"  
  
"A few minutes. There's no way we've got time to set the timer."  
  
Aiax nodded, staring at the bomb, a strange expression in his eyes. "I was not meant to die like this."  
  
Harm looked like he was about to agree, or make some comment about it being a good way to go, when all his features suddenly froze. He turned his head to look at Mac, the wildness gone from his eyes and replaced with a very, very strange light.  
  
"Looks like this is a day for fulfilling prophecies, Mac."  
  
"What?"  
  
"sangue meo, vobis vitam donabo." 


	17. Chapter 77

"Harm, we worked out what that meant."  
  
"Did we?"  
  
"Come on Harm, we used your blood to cure the entire SGC of some weird alien bug from another dimension."  
  
"How do we know that wasn't just a pleasant side-effect of the prophesy?"  
  
"What else could it have meant?"  
  
"Mac, there's always a meaning behind an oracle that you don't see until it's too late. One of the Oracle at Delphi's most famous pronouncements was that if a certain king invaded another's land, "a great empire will fall". He took this as a sign of his success, but as it turned out the "great empire" which fell was his own."  
  
"That's not the same as having two meanings."  
  
"But it shows you can never be certain with prophecies. They're always vague enough to allow you to do what you wanted to do anyway whilst absolving themselves of blame when everything goes to hell."  
  
To Mac's terror, as Harm was speaking he had picked up one of the tools he had been using on the bomb and begun to open a vein on his left forearm. "Harm? What are you doing?"  
  
"Setting a fuse. It'll give us enough time to get away. We have to blow this place, we can't let Anubis get his hands on this much naquadah for no loss. And if we're lucky we might take out one or two of his ships while we're at it."  
  
"A fuse?"  
  
"A trail of my blood."  
  
"Harm, blood doesn't burn."  
  
"The blood doesn't have to. But the naquadah in it will."  
  
"Why can't we just leave a trail of naquadah?"  
  
"No way to control its combustion. It would be explosive, and wouldn't work as a slow-acting fuse. The naquadah in my blood's composed differently. Sam and Janet had hours of fun playing with it once. It takes a lot to set it off, but once it goes, it'll burn steadily at a rate I can pretty much predict. I figure two staff weapons fired at point-blank range should set it off. That'll be me and Aiax. You get back to the ship and prep for takeoff, we'll need to get out quickly and hope Anubis doesn't notice. If the explosion even licks us with the amount of naquadah we're carrying it won't be pretty."  
  
Mac stared at him in disbelief. "You don't think it's gonna work and you want me out of the way so I don't see you get blown into tiny pieces."  
  
"Mac, if I get blown to pieces and you don't, you're gonna get tortured. Neither you or Dad can really fly the ship; Anubis would catch you in a second. I need you to get the ship ready to go, and let Dad know what's going on. I wouldn't blow myself to bits without you. Butch and Cassidy, remember?"  
  
"Okay, I'm going. But if you die, your ass is mine."  
  
Aiax looked at Harm. "Are you as confident as you made yourself sound?"  
  
"Not quite. But it's not really the moment to start being a realist."  
  
"It is true what they say. The Tau'ri have a strange sense of humour."  
  
"Let's get this done. We have about three minutes, and getting away from here will take at least two." Harm grabbed a staff weapon from a locker in the corner and leaned on it heavily, his blood leaving his body more quickly than he had anticipated.  
  
The two of them trailed Harm's blood out of the room and down the corridor a bit towards the ship.  
  
"That should do. Okay, on count of three, fire at this point here. One, two, THREE!"  
  
They fired simultaneously, and Harm's trail of blood began to fizz and spark. The sparks moved along the trail at the speed Harm had hoped they would.  
  
"Okay, now run!"  
  
Harm Sr and Mac saw them coming, Aiax in front, Harm lagging behind a little. As Aiax fell through the doorway into the ship, the doors began to close. Harm tried for one last burst of speed, but it was not enough. He stumbled and fell several yards short, closing his eyes to ward off the dizziness as he saw the gap between the doors grow smaller and smaller before he passed out. 


	18. Chapter 78

Harm was surrounded by light. Blinding light. It pierced his eyes and bounded around inside his skull. Were it not for the incredible pain, not only from the light but from his fall, he might have thought he was dead.  
  
He realised he was standing upright, and that despite his bloodloss, he was not dizzy any more. As soon as he realised this, he began to feel light- headed.  
  
"Powerful thing, suggestion."  
  
"Who said that?" Harm spun around looking for the source of the voice. He nearly fell over. "Who said that?!"  
  
"I did."  
  
A man appeared before him. There was something familiar about him, but Harm couldn't put a finger on what it was. His presence was comforting, though.  
  
"Who are you? What's going on?"  
  
"You're unconscious on the floor of an alien base that's about to blow up as a result of your own actions."  
  
"That's not really very helpful."  
  
"No, I didn't think it would be."  
  
Harm waited for the man to explain that statement. He didn't. "Are you going to tell me anything that is helpful?"  
  
"No. For the moment, we are just killing time here."  
  
"The base is about to blow up. I don't see how killing time would be a good thing."  
  
"I was speaking figuratively. Time is relative, you know."  
  
"So I've been told. But if time is relative, why do we need to kill it?"  
  
"Ever the lawyer's mind. Sit down, now that the thought of dizziness is in your mind, you should do something about it."  
  
Harm sat, seeing no particular reason not to. "What is this place?"  
  
"Ah, that is a good question. One which must go unanswered for the time being."  
  
Harm glared at him, but the man appeared not to notice.  
  
He had been sitting for what could have been an eternity, or could have been only a few seconds, when he felt a warm weight press down upon his shoulder. He put his hand up to it, and encountered a powerful green paw, vibrating with the force of its owner's purr.  
  
"Now we can get started."  
  
Harm snapped his attention back to the man. "Okay. What's going on?"  
  
"That is a long story."  
  
"I don't appear to be going anywhere."  
  
"Very well."  
  
"The Goa'uld are not the only alien race to have spent time on your planet. My kind spent many many years there, though our sphere of influence was much smaller than that of the Goa'uld. We confined ourselves to the southern area of the island of Albion, an island with raw power in its very soil. Few of the great devices my people built for the benefit of yours, to harness that power, remain, but it was mainly the smaller ones which were lost. The true tragedy is that your people do not even understand them any more.  
  
"You are familiar with the legends of the lost continent of Atlantis. Most people of your culture and education are at least passingly aware of them. They tell of a continent of incredibly advances people, lost to some sort of natural disaster, untraceable beneath the waves of one of the great oceans of your planet.  
  
"The myths lead the mind away from the true realities of Atlantis. Atlantis was not physically lost. As such, it never physically existed. Atlantis was Albion under my people, and it endured longer than your historians would ever believe. Only with the passing of the one you call Arturus, Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus, did Atlantis as my kind knew it sink between the waves. Most of us left, with only a few remaining to keep the blood of the Furlings alive on Earth.  
  
"An ancestor of your in the direct paternal line was one of them. Dilute though it is, the blood of the Furlings runs in your veins. That is why your friend there was drawn to the woman you love; he smelled you on her, and a threat to her became a threat to the blood of the Furlings. That Latin prophecy of hers has deeper meanings than you can possibly imagine.  
  
"We have taken a great deal of interest in you throughout your life. We knew the Furling blood was due to reassert itself soon, and when the SGC was formed we knew the time had come, and set the events in motion that would eventually steer you towards your destiny. You were correct about Sergei truly believing he is your brother; we arranged that it would be so. Your mutual belief that you were brothers was greatly instrumental in your transfer to the SGC, a transfer which we deemed necessary. We knew something big was going to happen; we have something of an ability to sense upcoming events which will radically alter future history, and have no desire to see Anubis ruling the galaxy, or extending his dominion even further. What you have done here today may well achieve what we desire, but we cannot be certain until the bomb detonates."  
  
Harm stared at him, not even attempting to keep his jaw shut. As he did so, he realised where he had seen the man before.  
  
"You were in my vision. You were the old man. Merlin."  
  
"I was. Romanticised legend calls me a Wizard, when I was in truth the last of the true Druids. The Druids recalled by history were those taught by the Furlings, and they were wiped out at Mona by the Romans, but only the Furling Druids truly wielded the power ascribed to Druids by the common man."  
  
"Okay. You've told me the background. What's going on at the moment?"  
  
"You fell, short of the doors. We transported your consciousness here to explain things to you, and to give your friend a chance to catch up with you."  
  
"So that?"  
  
"You'll see," said Merlin, with a small smile.  
  
Then he vanished. 


	19. Chapter 79

The collision of his head with the hard ground jarred him back into unhappy consciousness, and he raised his head, which someone wearing cement boots was dancing a hornpipe on, expecting to see the doors continue to close.  
  
They were motionless. He began to let out a sigh of relief when he caught sight of Mac's horrifed face in the gap. It was completely motionless. Not just shocked stillness; it wasn't natural enough for that. Something strange was going on.  
  
Before he could work out what, a strong set of jaws clamped onto his shoulder, and a number of long green whiskers worked their way into his left ear. He felt himself lifted from the ground, then the cat leapt. He was vaguely aware of the sensation of passing through a confined space before it all became too much for him, and he lost his unsteady and unwilling grasp on wakefulness.  
  
Mac could not believe her eyes, a state of affairs to which she was becoming quite accustomed. One moment she had been staring dumbstruck at the love of her life failing to make it the last few paces to relative safety, the next he had been lying at her feet, being gently nuzzled by an alien creature that had taken a liking to the pair of them. And her internal clock was quite insistent on the fact that no time had passed between those two moments.  
  
She felt the ship lift off, the doors now closed. Aiax and Harm Sr were nowhere to be seen, and had apparently had the presence of mind to head for the bridge to get them the hell out of Dodge before things became painfully interesting.  
  
Aware that there was nothing she could do to hasten their departure, she fell to the deck next to Harm, taking his head into her lap. His face was worryingly pale; blood still oozed slowly from his arm.  
  
She swore softly. "Damn it, Harm, no wonder you got hurt so much in the last few months if you spent the whole time pulling stupid stunts like this."  
  
She expected no answer, and received none. Sighing, she pressed her hand against Harm's wound in an effort to stop the bleeding.  
  
A footstep sounded near her, and she looked up into Harm Sr's eyes. "Are we safe?"  
  
"Not yet, we'll be far enough from the planet for safe hyperlaunch in a few seconds, apparently. We should just make it, and from the looks of it, Anubis isn't going to get out of the way in time. He doesn't know about the bomb, he's just going straight in. I asked about whether his shields could cope with the explosion, Aiax says there's no shield in the universe can handle that much naquadah blowing up at point-blank range. Well, he didn't say point-blank range, but that was the general idea."  
  
The ship seemed to stretch briefly, and Mac nearly collapsed over Harm. "That was hyperlaunch I take it?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
The ship then rocked. A spasm rippled through Harm's body, and the furry green creature licked his face in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring manner.  
  
"That wasn't hyperlaunch."  
  
"No. I'll go talk to Aiax."  
  
Harm Sr vanished back in the direction of the bridge, leaving Mac once again alone with Harm and their companion.  
  
"Hey Flyboy. We could use a little of your luck here. Looks like we might not be out of trouble yet."  
  
It was a few minutes before Harm Sr returned, a harried look on his face.  
  
"Hammer? What's up?"  
  
"The hyperspace conduit, and don't ask me what that is, hadn't quite closed behind us when the bomb went off. That meant we got some readings of what happened to Anubis' ships, and it looks like we wiped out most of his fleet, including his flagship. No way to tell whether he was on board though, or if he had time to get off somehow if he was. Bad news is some of the explosion hit us. Luckily it didn't penetrate any important parts of the hull, but our steering and anti-gravity controls are pretty much out of whack. We're headed for Earth and can drop out of hyperspace when we get there, but Aiax has no idea what will happen then. We'll probably be in for a pretty rough ride, and we can't just beam off the ship. For one thing we don't know if the beaming technology's still working, for another we can't just leave this much naquadah floating around uncontrolled near Earth."  
  
Mac looked back down at Harm. "See, Sailor? We're really gonna need that luck." 


	20. Chapter 80

Hours passed. Were it not for the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, Mac would have passed out from sheer exhaustion long before. She was very glad that Aiax had programmed the ship to drop out of hyperspace near Earth, rather than in the outskirts of the solar system. That would save them a good two hours, and she was honestly concerned about Harm's health. Extreme bloodloss combined with all the things that had happened to him over the last few days could not be good.  
  
Finally Mac felt the sickening lurch which signified the extreme deceleration from hyperdrive to sub-lightspeed engines. She caught her breath, waiting for something to go wrong. She released it in a huge sigh when they did not immediately collide with anything.  
  
But her heart leapt straight back into her throat when a few seconds later, sounds emerged from the bridge which she could not understand but which were undoubtedly not representative of good fortune. Her suspicions were confirmed when Hammer once again put in an appearance.  
  
"The abrupt deceleration messed something up. We have no idea what. But we're heading towards Earth's surface pretty damn fast. At our current trajectory, we're going to end up in the drink in the middle of the North Atlantic."  
  
Mac stared at him, her mind completely empty of all words. Then she pulled herself together.  
  
"Do we have any control at all?"  
  
"Aiax is working on it. We have about fifteen minutes, maybe a little more. Why?"  
  
"I was on the Patrick Henry for a case a couple of weeks ago. They were near the end of their cruise, they're probably in the middle of the North Atlantic right about now."  
  
"The Patrick Henry?"  
  
"An aircraft carrier. Harm used to fly off her."  
  
"Landing an alien spaceship on an aircraft carrier wouldn't exactly go unnoticed."  
  
"Call... Ingles..."  
  
Mac looked down at Harm, now half conscious. "What?"  
  
"Call Captain Ingles. Let me speak to him. He can get non-essential personnel off the deck, make sure no-one has any cameras around or anything. Man keeps a tight ship, he can handle it. Take me to the bridge, I'll talk to him."  
  
"This is assuming Aiax can get us some sort of control in time."  
  
"Think happy thoughts, okay? We'll be fine. We didn't get out of that explosion just to drown in the Atlantic."  
  
"USS Patrick Henry, this is Captain Harmon Rabb Junior, US Navy. Do you copy?" Harm's voice was weak, but he managed to speak without hesitation.  
  
"Rabb? Where the hell are you? We don't have anything on our radar."  
  
"I'm a little too high for radar at the moment, skipper. I was wondering if I could use your deck?"  
  
"What are you flying?"  
  
"Nothing you've ever seen before. I don't need a wire, just a clear deck. And as few people watching as possible."  
  
"So scuttlebuts' true? You're flying for the Company?"  
  
"No sir! I'm Navy, like I said."  
  
"I heard that. I wasn't invited to the wet-down."  
  
"It was pretty low-key. The work I'm doing at the moment is military, but it's still really classified. Can I have your deck?"  
  
"How long until you get here?"  
  
"About ten minutes."  
  
"You expect me to clear my deck in ten minutes?"  
  
"Just of personnel. I should have enough room to land without getting aircraft out of the way, though if you can that would be good."  
  
"I wouldn't do this for anyone else, Rabb."  
  
"Thankyou sir. You have no idea how important this is. And like I said, try to let as few people see this as possible."  
  
"See you in a few minutes. Patrick Henry out." 


	21. Chapter 81

The Patrick Henry hove into sight beneath them. Aiax cast a disbelieving look at Harm.  
  
"You intend to land on the surface of that vessel? I may have given you control, but I'm not certain about the degree of precision in the controls."  
  
"That's what I'm going to land it manually."  
  
"You are insane, Tau'ri."  
  
"People tell me that a lot. I'm probably going to develop a complex."  
  
"I do not know what you mean by that, but if you get it from being told you are insane, I think you should have one."  
  
"We have to try this. Decloak, let's give those guys something to tell their grandchildren about."  
  
"I thought you kept your Chapa'ai a secret?"  
  
"It can't stay that way forever."  
  
A voice came over the communication system.  
  
"Rabb?! That you?!"  
  
"You see why I didn't want many people getting a look at this thing?"  
  
"What the hell is it?"  
  
"I'll tell you in private when we're down safely. Don't let anyone near it once we're down."  
  
"We? There's more than one of you on that thing?"  
  
"I've got Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie with me, and a couple of other people you don't know. Is the deck clear?"  
  
"It's all yours. I hope I'm not gonna have that thing cluttering it up for too long."  
  
"We'll be out of your hair as soon as possible, skipper. I just need to call my guys stateside and they'll be out to pick us up. But I'd appreciate it if this didn't get mentioned in any debriefings short of the Joint Chiefs."  
  
"I don't think my superiors would believe this anyway. But I want to hear the story behind this."  
  
"I'll try and get you and the CAG clearance. Now I need to concentrate, so I'll talk to you in a bit. Rabb out."  
  
Harm placed his hands on the controls, exchanging a rueful look with his father.  
  
"Well, this is something you don't get to do every day."  
  
Harm Sr smiled. "Didn't ever picture myself back on a carrier, let alone landing on one like this."  
  
Harm focussed all his attention on the gently pitching deck growing ever closer beneath them. Their lack of anti-gravity systems meant he would have to break at exactly the right time using the thrusters normally used in take-off, using exactly the right amount of force and making sure it hit the deck in exactly the right place.  
  
Beads of sweat appeared on his brow, which was already as white as a sheet. No-one breathed.  
  
The skeleton crew of officers and men whom Toby Ingles had allowed to remain on the bridge of the Patrick Henry didn't breathe either, though for different reasons. The XO voiced what they were all thinking.  
  
"No-one on the planet has the technology to build a ship like that. They were invisible as well as off-radar until just before you started speaking to Captain Rabb. If we were even thinking about technology like that, there'd be rumours."  
  
The CAG stood transfixed. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think we're looking at an alien spaceship. And knowing Rabb, he probably stole it."  
  
"There's a UFO about to land on my deck. What the hell has Rabb gotten involved in this time?"  
  
Silence fell again, as the Rabb's craft descended slowly towards the largest open space on he deck. Again it was the XO who spoke.  
  
"Wonder what's wrong with it?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look at that thing. No-one would try to land that on a carrier, especially one full of people he knows and who are gonna want explanations, unless something was wrong and for some reason he couldn't get it to dry land. And aren't those scorch marks?"  
  
"They could be. Or they could be perfectly normal. There's no way we can tell."  
  
"But as it's Rabb, I wouldn't put money on it being in perfect condition. He does spend a lot of time in damamged birds." This was the CAG putting his two cents in.  
  
"But he always seems to come out of it okay. None of his crashes have ever been his fault, and he's had more than his share of them."  
  
"Let's hope he knows what he's doing with that thing."  
  
The deck was only a few feet below now. Harm's jaw was clenched tight, his eyes not moving from the screen that showed him what was going on beneath him. He took a deep breath in through his nose, then fired the thrusters that would, hopefully, balance out the pull gravity had on the ship at the moment it touched the deck, no sooner and no later.  
  
Those last couple of seconds were the worst. If he had timed that last thrust wrong, he wouldn't know until it was too late to do more than hit the controls and pray.  
  
Both on the cargo ship and on the bridge of the Henry, people waited for the impact with baited breath.  
  
There was a screech of metal as deck met hull. Then silence. 


	22. Chapter 82

On the bridge of the cargo ship, Harm cast Mac a victorious grin, before fainting dead away.  
  
"Harm? Harm! This is getting ridiculous."  
  
"Rabb? You still there?" Captain Ingles' voice came over the radio. Harm Sr gestured that Mac should be the one to answer.  
  
"This is Colonel MacKenzie, sir. Captain Rabb passed out as soon as we were safe on the deck. I'd like your permission to take him to sickbay, he's lost a lot of blood. There's someone here who can help me get him off the flight deck, but he could use a flight surgeon once we get him inside. Then I need to make an urgent ship-to-shore call so we can get back where we're supposed to be."  
  
"You've got someone to stay on your... thing... and keep an eye on it?"  
  
"Yes sir"  
  
"Very well. Our comms guys can set you up a line from sickbay, I'll meet you down there. I'd like to know why my ship's being used as a landing pad for UFOs."  
  
"Yes sir. Thank you, sir."  
  
The flight surgeon who met Mac and Harm Sr as they carried Harm between them off the flight deck gave noouter signs of surprise at what was going on. He had probably dealt with situations where questions are unappreciated before, though this particular one blew most others out of the water. He had no idea what had just landed on the flight deck, but knew it must be unusual because no-one was allowed up there, or anywhere where they might get a view of whatever was up there. The fact that a man whom he knew for a fact did not have any siblings of his own age, and certainly not an identical twin, was being half-carried by a man who looked enough like him to fool his own mother must have set off alarm bells in his head, but to his credit he was able to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on; he was simply taking an injured pilot under his care.  
  
"What do you know of his condition?"  
  
It was Mac who gave him an answer. Someone who couldn't exist answering his questions might have proved too much for the good doctor. "He's lost a lot of blood from a wound in his arm. It's been bleeding for several hours now, I applied pressure but it didn't stop the bleeding, only slowed it. And he was in hospital until a couple of days ago with a mysterious pathogen in his system. I can put you through to his usual doctor in a few minutes if that would help."  
  
"That would be a very good idea. Before I can do much to treat him I need to know what sort of state he's in physically and medically."  
  
"If you need to transfuse him, this man gave him blood a few days ago with no problems."  
  
"Thankyou, I may well need to make use of him. We're nearly at sickbay now, the Captain should be waiting for us with your ship-to-shore line."  
  
He was indeed waiting for them, his eyes burning with curiosity.  
  
"Colonel MacKenzie. No offense, but I was hoping not to see you again for a while. Especially not under circumstances like this."  
  
"No offense taken sir." She saw his eyes go past her to her companion, and widen perceptibly. "Captain, may I introduce Acting Captain Harmon Rabb Senior?"  
  
The skipper's eyes snapped back to hers. He didn't attempt to hide his disbelief.  
  
"Even if Rabb's father were alive, which he isn't, he'd be at least twenty years older than that man."  
  
"Captain, Harm just landed what I'm sure you've realised is an alien spacecraft on your deck. Compared to that, is it so hard to believe he got his father back under unusual circumstances?"  
  
"I'm not sure what I believe at the moment, Colonel." He handed her a large portable phone. "Your ship-to-shore line's ready."  
  
"Thankyou, sir."  
  
She moved a few paces further into sickbay to a spot where she could watch Harm whilst at the same time maintaining a least a semblance of privacy in her phone call to General Hammond.  
  
"General? It's Colonel MacKenzie."  
  
"We're on the USS Patrick Henry, in the Atlantic, sir."  
  
"Apollo's sister Artemis turned up. Harm managed to convince her Apollo was still alive in him. Then when she suggested a mission to take out a base of Pan's and steal some naquadah, he had to go along with it. Otherwise she'd have shot him on the spot, sir."  
  
"She had a ship in orbit, sir. We beamed up there. She found us at Harm's grandmother's house."  
  
"I don't know, sir."  
  
"We freed the Jaffa, set a bomb on the base, and got out of there. Something about a chain reaction of naquadah. Oh, and Anubis turned up. We think we wiped out his fleet."  
  
"Yes sir, that was us. How did you hear about that?"  
  
"How did they know?"  
  
"Sorry, sir. We came back to Earth in the ship Artemis used."  
  
"No sir, the Jaffa killed her."  
  
"The explosion damaged the ship. Harm set us down on the Patrick Henry to save us and the naquadah we got from the base."  
  
"I don't know, but Harm seemed to think we could do a lot with it. It filled the entire cargo hold."  
  
"He used his blood as a fuse, sir. He passed out just after we landed."  
  
"The deck was clear, sir. Only a few people saw us land, and the flight deck's off-limits to all personnel at the moment. There aren't any fighters in the air or CODs expected for a while, so it shouldn't be a problem for a bit, but we should get ourselves and the ship out of here ASAP."  
  
"The skipper of the Henry's right here, sir. You should probably talk to him."  
  
"Yes sir. I'm sure Harm'll appreciate that. Here's Captain Ingles, sir."  
  
Mac didn't listen to the skipper's side of the conversation. She took Harm's right hand in her own and gently stroked it. This drew the doctor's attention.  
  
"What happened to his arm?"  
  
"It got blown up a few weeks ago. He can use it for most things now, but he doesn't have the usual strength in it yet."  
  
"What the hell's Hammer been doing to himself? I looked him over last time he was out here for his quals. I didn't think a man could pick up that many scars in a year and still be sane and walking around. And I've seen my share of miracle recoveries."  
  
"You know Harm. He's just a big trouble magnet."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
At this point, Ingles held out the phone to the doctor. "There's a Doctor Janet Fraiser to talk to you. Air Force. She's Hammer's usual Doc at the moment."  
  
The doctor stepped away to consult with Janet, and Ingles looked over at Harm Sr.  
  
"So you're the original Hammer?"  
  
"That's me, skipper. First time on a carrier since last time I left the Tyco."  
  
"Hell of a homecoming for you."  
  
"It's not how I'd imagined it after I first went down, no."  
  
"You're a legend around here. Though there's a lot of brass around that would probably like to kill you."  
  
"What'd I do to them?"  
  
"You gave them another generation of Rabbs to deal with."  
  
"Well, in that case you probably don't want to hear this, but I have a feeling it won't be the last." He cast a significant look at the way Mac was holding Harm's hand.  
  
Ingles gave a small smile. "I always figured there was something about those two. God help the Navy if they have kids."  
  
"Look at it this way. They've left it so long, you'll be well out of it by the time any more Rabbs make it through flight school."  
  
"Part of me hopes I'm not. That son of yours does have a way of making life interesting."  
  
"So I'm told." 


	23. Chapter 83

Jack glanced out of the open hatch of the chopper, looking at the water passing beneath them.  
  
"Carter, ya think they could have done it?"  
  
There was no need for her to ask what he was talking about. The entire SGC was wondering the same thing.  
  
"Sir, it's highly probable that if Anubis' fleet was where Colonel MacKenzie said it was at the time of the explosion, and the explosion was strong enough to get them even after they'd entered hyperspace, it was wiped out. But we don't know enough about Anubis' physiology to say for sure whether he was killed."  
  
"But his goons are gone."  
  
"Probably, sir."  
  
"And even if he's alive, it'll take him some time to build up forces again, if he manages it at all."  
  
"Indeed, O'Neill." This, obviously, from Teal'c. "The System Lords will not surrender territory and supplies to Anubis so easily now that they know what he is capable of, and too many Jaffa are hearing the call of freedom for many to readily join his cause. If he is indeed alive, he must bide his time and rebuild his army of super-warriors."  
  
"So we don't have to worry about him coming and kicking our asses for a while."  
  
"We do not."  
  
"Excellent. Maybe I can finally go fishing without being interrupted."  
  
Sam looked at the floor to hide a smile.  
  
"Whaddaya say, Carter? Just the fish, the water, a few beers, and complete relaxation. When's the last time you took any leave anyway? Other than the time the General forced you to?"  
  
"Sir, your lake doesn't actually have any fish in it."  
  
"Carter, it's not the fish that matter. It's the act of fishing."  
  
Rabb Sr was waiting on the flight deck when they arrived, with Captain Ingles beside him. Jack, who had worked with the Navy in his Black Ops days, remembered one small bit of Naval tradition.  
  
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?"  
  
"Permission granted, Colonel. Welcome to the Patrick Henry."  
  
"Nice boat you got here. So Hammer, where's this ship you guys stole?"  
  
"Behind the chopper. Follow me. We picked up a Jaffa while we were there."  
  
"Captain Rabb, Colonel MacKenzie said you picked up some naquadah?"  
  
"I take it you want to play, Major?"  
  
"I'd like to see for myself what amount we're actually talking about. And I'd like a look at the ship as well."  
  
"Thought you might. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour. You want to come, skipper?"  
  
"You think I'd miss a chance to see this? I'm right behind you."  
  
The Guardian greeted Harm Sr affectionately when the small group boarded the ship. Ingles looked at it slightly askance.  
  
"What in God's name is that?"  
  
"That would be a creature from another planet. Closest we could get to a little green man. Trust me when I say you don't want it pissed at you."  
  
"I'll take your word for it, Colonel."  
  
Sam made her way through to the bridge. Aiax came to his feet as she entered.  
  
"You must be Major Carter of SG-1. Your name and appearance are known to all Jaffa."  
  
"Thanks, I think. You were one of Pan's Jaffa?"  
  
"I was. But I chose the path of freedom when the Prophecy of the Liberator was fulfilled."  
  
"The Prophecy of the Liberator?"  
  
"It related to the one your people call the Hammer. The son, not the father. His arrival set my people free. We shall make a new life for ourselves out of the reach of the Goa'uld."  
  
"Good for you." This from O'Neill. "Can you tell us what sort of state this piece of junk is in?"  
  
"I am not entirely certain, I have not had a chance to check all the systems. Hyperdrive is functioning, but I had to perform emergency repairs to sub-light steering, and the anti-gravitational systems are not working."  
  
"Any idea how we can get it off this ship and somewhere safe?"  
  
"I would suggest you repair the engines and steering systems, then take it into orbit under cloak. From there you can transport the naquadah down to your base, then do what you will with the ship itself."  
  
"Okay, Carter, Teal'c, get to it. We don't want to trespass on the squids' hospitality, do we?"  
  
"Don't tell me Rabb finished a mission unconscious again."  
  
"Uh Jack, this wasn't exactly a mission." Daniel scratched the back of his neck absently.  
  
"Good point. Rabb finished a joyride unconscious. How's he doing?"  
  
Mac looked up at this. "The doctor gave him a pint of his dad's blood, but he's still got less blood than they'd like. He's stable enough to be transferred back stateside any time, so we can get him to the mountain or the Academy hospital and keep people here from starting rumours. Just as soon as you're ready to get out of here, sir."  
  
"We can send him back now. There's no paperwork concerning how he got here, few crewmembers have seen him. Carter brought that transport device we got off Osiris with her. Janet can be sticking needles into all three of you in just a couple of minutes."  
  
Janet sent Harm Sr away after only a few minutes, confident that he only needed to rest for a little while to get over the transfusion. She had run some basic blood tests as SOP, but nothing unusual had come up. Reading over the chart she had made for Colonel MacKenzie, on whom she had also run the standard blood tests, she allowed herself a small smile. It wasn't often in her job she got to be the bearer of glad tidings.  
  
"Colonel. Captain, how are you feeling?"  
  
"Like I got run over by a truck, Doc." His voice was weak, but there was discernable humour in it.  
  
"Well, that didn't quite happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does, one of these days. I never thought I'd say this, but your team are worse for strange injuried than SG-1 is."  
  
"We try."  
  
"Well, despite your interesting new use for blood, and the lasting effects of the last few days, there's nothing seriously wrong with you. I'd like to keep you here for a couple of days to keep an eye on you, but I'm not expecting anything to come up. Colonel MacKenzie, however, is gonna need to take things easy for a lot longer than that. Something showed up in one of her blood tests I think you should know about. Congratulations, Lieutenant Colonel. You're pregnant."  
  
Mac stared at her in astonishment. Harm, however, gripped her tightly by the hand, forcing her to look down at him. He smiled at her. Not his fighter-jock grin, a smile more personal and affectionate than that, but nonetheless a smile full of male pride.  
  
"Told you I always keep my promises, Marine."  
  
THE END!  
  
FINALLY!  
  
A big thank-you to everyone who's kept reading this far. I didn't mean this to be this long. Honest. I just wanted Harm to get a chance to yell at the Admiral, and things spiralled out of control from there.  
  
A specially big thank-you to the people who've sent me encouraging feedback, even the ones who threatened me with grievous bodily harm after some of the cliffhangers. I expect I'll write some more JAG fanfic in the future, but for the time being I'm going to focus on an idea I've got for an original novel. 


End file.
